Just when I was getting discouraged...

I thought I would never improve in triathlons;however, just when I was getting discouraged with my performance, I had a major swim breakthough. Last night, at the end of swim practice, we did 2 X 25 sprint. I normally do these 25's in 17-18 seconds.

Last night I did one of the 25's in 16.6 seconds. I couldn't belive it. I thought the coach messed up with his watch, or the pool somehow shrank. I knew however, that pools didn't shrink and watches are usally very accurate. In my state of disbelief, I stepped up to the blocks to do another 25 yard sprint.

I plowed though the water as fast as I possibly could. My new time: 15.6 seconds! A whole second off of what I thought would be my best time! This two second improvement was only off a 25. I can't wait to see what my times are going to be like in the longer swim races. Too bad I will have to wait untill October for my next swim meet.

It is weird the way that fitness comes. When you first start working out, you make huge improvements all the time. I remember last year when I was first getting into shape: almost every workout would be my longest or fastest swim/bike/run ever.

After a few months, these improvements would begin to slow down. I would continue making small improvements here and there, but my times and distances would pretty much stay the same. That is how everything has been for the past several months. Now, however, I must have hit one of those huge jumps in improvement.

I can tell because my arms and legs (especially my legs- from all the biking and running I have been doing) are starting to feel a lot stronger. Have you ever had that happen during a time of getitng into shape? Your arms and legs just feel stronger?

I am sure the reason I am experincing such a huge leap in fitness is because of the twelve to fourteen hour training weeks I have been putting in this summer. I have recently been doing about 2 hours of training a day. Before this summer, however, I only trained about 7-10 hours a week. I think since I have been increasing my training so much since June, my body is finally having a chance to absorb all the extra workouts.

However it happened dosn't really matter. No matter what, I can not wait to shatter some of my previous best times during the next swim meet in October!

Oh, and some more great news: I can finally do another triathlon. I havn't done a triathlon since the beginning of May. I kept asking my parents if I could do one these past two months and they kept saying "no". They said this because because there was a whole bunch of other thngs going on through out the past few months, such as swim meets and my grandparents visiting for a month. The month of August is pretty free though. I finally have parental permission to do a triathlon Aug. 24! All I have to do now is get registered for the thing!

The triathlon is called the Great Buckeye Challenge. It is in a town called Springfield (no- not the Simpson's Springfield) only about 45 minutes from home. I am hoping to do the "mini" distance. It sounds really cute, right?

Wrong! It will be my first olympic distance triathlon. 1000m swim/24.9 mile bike/6.55mile run. I am so excited and nervous- but with a name like "mini" how bad can it be?

This Disney character would enjoy herself in the triathlon:



I hope I will too!