New sport, new drills

New to me that is, old to everyone else who spends quality time in a pool. Last night Ms. Claudia and I met up for our first scheduled pre-tri training swim. This is to get us in good enough shape to start training for the Pacific Grove Triathlon which is on September 14th. I think our real training will begin the end of April, so this is just to ease the shock of trying a new type of activity. I repeat, right now we're only in training to train for the event, not actually training yet.

I'm very glad we started early because ow. Ow! I sure didn't remember from the last time I did any serious swimming (uh, 20+ years ago) that it was so much work. Maybe it's just that back then I was such a chain smoker that I didn't have the lung power to move too much. Or maybe it's that I was younger. Or maybe I had never participated in any kind of sport whatsoever and didn't know how to push my limits. Whatever the reason I was astounded when I climbed out of the pool after less than an hour that my legs would hardly support me. And my arms would barely lift above my head. We did drills and swims and kicks and back and forth and back and forth and good grief - I have a looooong way to go. Literally and figuratively. We hope to swim at least twice weekly from here on.

That doesn't even get into my issues about common showers and dressing rooms. For many reasons I have a very high modesty level and I'm not going to be able to be stripping down in a crowd. That's a problem that will be hard to deal with when real training starts. Right now it's no big deal since we're swimming about 5 minutes away from my house and I can change there. It was a little bizarre when we walked into the locker room last night. There was a crowd of girls, high school age or younger, and I felt like I was 14 years old again. And not in a good way.

I had early morning PT again today and the therapist seems to think I'm making progress. Yippee! I'm very impatient about getting back to running again but I'm terrified about setting myself back and having those shooting pains again. I continue with my exercises and stretches like a good girl. They take so much time I'm catching up on all my recorded television shows. I'm still hoping I can run a half in April. Fingers crossed!