Hard core swimming (Katie)

Matt and I are both feeling healthy this week.  Yay!  While he does his workouts with the TNT group and on his own at the downtown Y, I do some of my training with the Wichita Area Masters Swim club. 

Today our coach (Angie) gave us a timed 1000m swim with each 5th 50 being a non-free stroke.  Even though I will  never do backstroke in a triathlon (breaststroke is my recovery stroke of choice), I opted for backstroke because it allows me to breathe freely, stretch out my arms, and work opposing muscles from my freestyle.

Today, my teammate David was there, and since he's pretty competitive, we pushed each other on this timed event.  We started off fast, and we didn't let up--even on the "recovery" 50s.  I felt good and strong, and we both had fun stealing the lead back and forth from one another.  He's a stronger freestyler than me, but I am stronger at backstroke and breaststroke (I think we're about even in butterfly). 

Normally on long distance freestyle swims, he takes the lead and I can never get it back from him, but today we were neck and neck the whole way, which made both of us swim faster.  We finished in 17 minutes, 25 seconds. 

And that was just part of our 3000 meter workout today.  The hardest part.  But not the only part. 

Matt and I are looking forward to going for a swim with my dad tomorrow.  He swam in high school and college but hasn't been in the water for awhile.  After my mom got sick last year, he spent most of his free time with her in the hospital (his strength is amazing!).  Even though I know he's nervous about people seeing him in his swimsuit (he doesn't need to be), I think he's also excited about getting back into the water ... and even maybe swimming in the Sunflower Games this July in Topeka.

It's going to be a fun weekend!

Training Update (Matt)

I got Monday off from training. Tuesday I swam 1000 yards in 25.17 minutes. Today (Wednesday) I did spin for 30 minutes (123454321) -- tough.  Then we ran 30 minutes. Good workouts -- got me feeling like I did something. Tomorrow is 1 hour swim. Friday is 5k for time.

My (Matt's) swim today at the downtown Y

Jumped into the pool by 2:00 pm.
started with SKIPS (free, kick board, breaststroke, pulls, free) 100 yards each.
Next was sets of 100s
I swam a total of 4 sets = 2500 yards including SKIPS
Done by 4:00 pm
It has been a good day. Plus, the Shockers won. Everything is right in the world.

Tallying our Totals

As of today, here are our training stats (keeping in mind that we've both spent several days battling colds these first three weeks):

Distance swum
Katie: 20,500 meters
Matthew: 10,750 yards

Hours cycled (indoors)
Katie: 3 hours
Matthew:  3 hours

Miles run
Katie: 13 miles
Matthew:  23 miles

I think we're both over our colds, so let the hard core training begin! 

Let the real training begin ... (Katie)

Yesterday's bike-run was twice as long as last Sunday's, and my legs are feeling it today.  We were on those spin bikes for 90 minutes, followed by a 20 minute run.  Whew!  Matt and I both had a tall glass of chocolate milk after practice.  Best recovery nutrition out there, according to Coach Todd.  Today is a "recovery day," so I will recover by shoveling a bit of snow--hopefully the last of the season. 

Week 2 (Katie)

Well, Matt and I have both felt a little sick this past week.  Matt took most of the week off from training to recuperate, and I took a day off and took some days easy.  But today we both did our swims ... Matt swam a full mile, which is pretty amazing considering that he just began swimming a few months ago!  I did my regular 3000m distance and felt pretty good about that.  My masters swim coach Angie gave me a great swim workout yesterday morning too.  Tomorrow, we'll do our Sunday cycle-run at the Y after church.  Probably no Five Guys after the workout this week.  Maybe some homemade chili instead.  The cold weather has returned, and chili sounds pretty darn good right now.