Today was a swim/bike day. I swam about 500m, and then biked a little over 4 miles as part of a half hour workout. That amounted to 10:07 swim, 1:17 transition, and 20:39 bike.

Today I surfed instead of swimming. Sorry, but if there are waves, surfing wins.

For the record I did swim 500m on Tuesday. :-)

Today was one of those "almost" days, when I almost didn't swim. I was grouchy leaving the house. I was hoping to surf but it was flat when I got to the beach. :-( I decided to swim and not leave Tod hanging (we have a regular Thursday plan to swim at 8am). So I went. I did *not* see Tod, but I did swim.

Last week, when I swam, it felt like I had never swam before. My swim golf score was a 79 (up from 75). Add to that the fact that I could hardley swim 4 laps in a row without stopping, and I felt like a big loser. So this week, my new approach was not to swim for laps, but for a fixed amount of time. E.g. for a sprint triathlon, most folks swim the 450m in 10 minutes or less. So, my goal was just to keep swimming for 10 minutes. Just find a pace where I can swim that long without stopping.

And that's just what I did. I did it first in my pool at home on Tue this week. I just swam for 10 minutes in circles and figure eights, never pushing off a wall.

Today I went to the "real pool" at Gleason Park and wanted to see how different it might be to try the 10-minute thing there. I'm not sure what changed between last week and this, but I just got into the water and started swimming. I set my watch to count down from 10:15, and started going. And I just never stopped. It worked. I counted laps, and I swam 500m in that 10:15. I found a rhythm of breathing every 2 strokes was sustainable.

So I think I've met my goal of swimming and biking sprint triathlon distances. The upcoming HealthFirst Tri is a 450m swim and 16 mi. bike. Other sprint tri's do a 13 mi. bike. I think next Thu I need to do 500m swim followed by 13-16 mi bike. That would be fun.

Tod and I met to swim again this morning (no bike this time on account of needing to get to work at a reasonable time). I am still "bad" at endurance, but getting better. I swam about 600m today total (with stops, so don't get excited). But my golf score was much improved. I got a 75 (34 strokes 41 seconds). My goal was 76, so... yay! :-) Of course, Tod got a 71 AGAIN.

Well, today I swam and biked with Jose and Tod. We swam for about 1/2 hour at Gleason Park. This was my first swim with them, and so I did my first swimming "golf score". It was an 82. Tod said this was "phenomenal" for the first time. Of course, Jose followed with a 75, and Tod a 71, so I have a way to go. But it sets a good baseline.

Then we rode our bikes from the park down S. Tropical Trail. We rode down to the Pineda causeway and then back. The total ride was about 13 miles. My longest ride to date (yesterday) was 7 miles, so this was a big increase. Tonight I am not real sore, so I'm happy about that.

The photo is of Jose and Tod as we rode (gotta love cell phone cameras... always there for me.)

Hopefully more training stories to come.

Well, I'm going to start training in swimming and biking. My goal is just to be able to do a sprint triathlon amount of bike and swim. No running for now... I'm worried I'll hurt something as runners seem to always do. So, I'm doing the two out of three low-impact parts of triathlon.

So, sprint triathlon distances are roughly:

• 800 meter (0.5 mile) swim


• 13 mile bike ride


• 3 mile (5k) run

I'm going to try to get to those first two distances in 12 weeks.

So, to help get there I bought myself a new bike today at Sports Authority. It's a Columbia Silver Ridge Mens Mountain Bike. I took it for a spin about an hour ago and... I like it! :-)