Fantastico

I had a dish at the cafeteria today called Pasta Fantastico (penne, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, red pepper and parmesan cheese) and I really enjoyed the name of it.  It was tasty, too!

Things are going well these days and I feel like I've fallen into a nice regular routine with my workouts and even with my eating.  This past Friday my husband and I took the day off, mostly to catch a matinee of The Hunger Games, but also to sneak in a bike ride while the weather was nice.  We did about 13 miles on trails through town and it was very nice.  I'm getting to know my bike more and more every time I ride it and that helps with making me feel comfortable about racing on it this summer.  I finally kind of know which gear does what and where I need to be on big hills, downhills, etc.  Since I came to biking from a 3 gear cruiser, adding the extra gears and knowing what to do with them has been tough.

I wasn't able to get out and do anything on Saturday because we had our two nephews over for the weekend.  We played outside and I cleaned the garage, so I did get some movement in.  On Sunday I had a glorious day at the pool. I had been looking online at some swimming videos, just to see what those who really know what they're doing look like. My husband had been in some swimming classes with a coach at our gym that is really into immersion swimming and I decided to check that out:

 

Did you see how fluidly that guy moved?! I feel like I look like a cat that somebody threw into the water when I swim. That video got me thinking - what could I do to begin to move more like that guy? We also have a few books laying around the house on the subject, so I paged through one Saturday night while the kids were playing. Some things really stood out to me, especially the idea that swimming as hard and as fast as you can every single time you swim will not help to increase your speed, efficiency or endurance. This book was telling me to swim on my side and extend through my glide as much as I could and I would then feel like you're swimming downhill. Huh. So when I got into the pool on Sunday I had all of these thoughts running through my head and I really tried to concentrate on moving fluidly, extending my strokes and spending more time on my side. It worked! I used the pool buoy for a bunch of laps and I was feeling like I could swim all day. Even when I took the buoy out, I found that I was moving so much better than I had been before. My breathing was slow and constant, it was great! It felt like zen swimming and I was beginning to feel like that guy in the video (who knows what I actually LOOKED like though!). I was able to continually swim more than I ever had before. Yesterday I was able to get to the gym during work and get in a one mile run on a treadmill and about 200-250 yards in the pool. My swimming was once again so much more efficient than before Sunday.

Even my running was better yesterday.  I only did one mile because I was bored and couldn't wait to get back into the pool.  I tried pushing my speed though and felt really comfortable at 6.5 mph for short periods - um, that's a 9:17 min mile!  That is unheard of.  Of course, that was coupled with running mostly at 5mph and walking at 4mph, so it all basically worked out to be a 13 min mile.  But it is a start!