Indoor training on the road

I was out-of-town, on the east coast, for this past Saturday workout, so to make up for it, I woke up at what would be 5:30am PST and hit the hotel gym. When I arrived, someone had already commandeered the bicycle so I headed to the lobby to get a banana and wait out the 15 minutes. After a few peaceful minutes of slowly getting up to speed with the day, I found my Grandmother's cousin coming at me in the lobby! He said he didn't expect to see me up that early, especially not going to the gym! I explained the goal that I'm striving to achieve and explained my plan for the weekend - bike and run today, swim and run tomorrow. He asked if I'd be on tv, I politely explained that I'm not that fast, and I excused myself and returned to the gym to start my workout so that I could get it done in time.

I got started right away choosing the "Alpine Trail" programmed workout and opted for level 4. I mentally wished that anyone that needed to ride the bike would go back to bed because riding the stationary bike for 90 minutes would be really annoying if I had to get off the bike every 15 minutes to give someone else a turn. I loved that I could sit there and not worry about clips, not think about cars, and not wear a helmet - although perhaps I should have because when my foot caught the pedal slightly, I wavered in my chair and tensed up anticipating an impact.

When the bike was finished, I hopped up on the dreadmill and ran for 30 minutes with a 1 incline and doing 12 minute miles. That went a lot smoother because neither the stationary bike nor the treadmill subjected my joints to the jostling of last week, so it just felt good! Hindsight is 20/20 and I can tell you that I should have stretched right after the workout, (I hadn't since my deadline to leave for my Grandmother's memorial was encroaching, nor had I stretched the day before after running before hopping on a plane).

Despite feeling strange to have done the workout alone, it felt great to know that I didn't wimp out that day and completed a reasonable Irongirl workout.

Sunday, I wimped out. Admittedly due to how I wasn't feeling up to par between the alcohol consumed by 3 generations of cousins catching up on the past 30+ years and my muscles were still sore. Also due to the earlier start to Sunday's activities. My grandmother's cousin caught up with me when I arrived in the lobby to get a coffee and said he'd been looking in the pool for me! I guess I really did have the support staff even all the way in Maryland!

This week, I'm working to fit in every workout to try to hit this new normal of doubled up workouts. I'm trying to take full advantage of the training that Team In Training offers! My schedule has several obstacles in the next few weeks so I want to be there for as many other workouts as possible.

I'm asking the kids to wake up earlier 2 days a week so that I can run on Tuesday and swim on Thursday. I've notified their teachers to help look out for any adverse effects on their schooling. While I am unselfishly trying to raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma as well as other blood cancers, I'm selfishly trying to achieve this goal for myself as well. However, I don't want to be so selfish as to sacrifice my kids' well-being and education - it's a delicate balance!