This week marked a shift in my plans. For the past six weeks I've been able to commit to regular, daily exercise in a way that I've never really thought I could before. Though I went through some leg pain in the third week or so, when I started riding the exercise bike every day, that quickly went away, and I've been upping the resistance on my cycling sessions. Now that I know I can keep this up, I'm going to start the next phase of my challenge: I've started training for the open-water swims I've selected to do in July. That gives me just under 17 weeks to the first one, and I haven't been swimming for seven or eight months!

Swimming has always been my favourite form of exercise, and for a couple years as a kid I was on the school swim team. I loved it, and I can credit my time swimming competitively (even as a middle-schooler) with a lot of the technique that I swim with today!

I spent most of my spare time last week researching training programs for endurance swimming, and what to prepare for when switching from swimming laps in a pool to swimming in a lake or ocean. There's a lot out there to be read! And my inspiring friend who participated in The Big Swim between NB and PEI has some training tips for me that I'll get from her when she's back from her holiday next week.

I'm altering my exercise goals. I will now be training three days per week in the pool -- for the first 6-7 weeks I'll be following the "0 to 1650" program, which get me to swimming a "swimmer's mile" or 1500m. After that I'll need to build a program to get me to 5km, and when the water gets warmer, I'll work in some outdoor swimming.

On three of my non-swimming days I'll do about an hour of exercise in the mornings -- dumbell lifting and stationary bike cardio.  One day a week I'll rest and recuperate! And I'll aim to hit my 10,000 steps every day, regardless!

(Technically, as I'm writing this I'm three days into the new exercise program, but this post is for last week's exercise results, so...) 

 

Exercise Goals: 30 min of interval training on a stationary bike 4-5x/week, 30 min of dumbell circuit training 3x per week. Hit 10,000 steps every day.

 

Last week:

Bike: M, T, W, Th (4/5)

Circuit: Th, F, Sa (3/3) (Sat was snow shoveling, but still)

10,000 steps: M, T, Th, F, Sa, Su (6/7, and I was only 700 steps short on W)

 

What I struggled with last week:

My exercise goals were pretty bang on, but my food eating was not great! That's not quite true. I was doing awesome (new low weight Sat AM), but Saturday and Sunday evenings I ate poorly. Today, Wednesday, I'm only just getting back on track. I have to stop doing this to myself. Think how much further along I'd be if I didn't take these steps back every week!

 

What I'm proud of last week:

I did some serious long-range planning last week, and I'm reaping the rewards of that as I begin this week. 

 

What I'm looking forward to this week:

It's exciting to have an exercise goal to keep in sight, and I'm looking forward to getting fit and strong in the pool!