SNOWDAY!

So one highlight of this past week was that we had a snowday! So exciting- a day home from work where I mostly was responsible for... knitting. : ) Oh, and digging out my car...

I decided, though, to also try to get back into some strength and core work, since the Y was closed anyway... So after arriving home from work early on Tuesday night, I did my officemate's pilates video. And yes, since I am so bad at pilates, it was really hard, but I'm going to try to give it another go this week. Wednesday was an official snow day, so I went through the strength exercises we got in our tri group last year and in our run group this year. They mainly involved squats and lunges, crunches on the ball, and some arm weights and stuff. Unfortunately I can't find my dumbbells...so I was resigned to a bag of flour and a bag of sugar (which unfortunately were different weights, so I switched halfway through). Not ideal, but better than nothing...guess I need to find where I put these weights! I remember when these strength and core exercises were getting easier and that is not the case now. I have read a lot of blog posts about people working on core and strength during the non racing season, and I really want to try to get into that a little. In run clinic in the summer, we did these kinds of exercises every other week, and I could really tell that they started to get easier, but I feel back at square one now. So my new goal is to incorporate at least a half hour at least once a week...seems like an easy enough goal right? Hopefully I'll see some improvement in the next few months!
Thursday morning the Y was closed, so I took that as my off day, so by Friday i was totally itching to get back to doing some cardio. Luckily, the computrainer class was a GO on Friday. And, I got to use my new clippy pedals and shoes! It felt SO good to be cardio-ing, and it was a good start to practice clipping in and out. Though as we worked on individual legs, I realized I do have a lot of work to do in order to optimize my pedaling, but I am so glad to get to start now!
Saturday was an off day, because I volunteered at this middle school science bowl at work. It was so much fun- these middle school kids amazed me - they know so much about so many science topics. Very impressive!
Today I did a swim-since I'm (sadly) off long runs for the time being. I had to do 6x200s. Unfortunately for me, the guy I was sharing a lane with made it feel like a wave pool, and I gulped water almost every time I crossed his path. I have no idea what he was doing to make it that way, but I have never noticed this being a problem with any other lane buddies in the past! I sucked it up and figured its good practice- like open water swimming! haha. I swam a mile, though not very fast...I have a long way to go before I feel efficient at swimming again, but I have to keep reminding myself that I could barely swim 10 laps at this time last year... so I'll get there eventually!
Now for a return to a more normal workout week (after my week in Fl and the snowmageddon). Oh, and in other news, I got a lot of knitting done during the superbowl...my sister's socks will hopefully be finished before her upcoming visit!