Allow me to toot my own horn.

Yes, I will dedicate a post to boasting, thank you very much. I haven't updated in a while, but never fear, I've kept on keepin' on in the realm of workouts. And I'm pleased to announce that I've achieved several "personal records" or "personal bests" as they say. Distance-wise, anyway...I'm certainly not breaking any speed records these days, mine or anyone else's.

The first breakthrough came in the pool. As some of you may know, and others of you could learn by going back and reading old posts (shameless plug), I was really struggling to swim anything more than 50 meters without basically feeling like I was gasping for air and on the verge of vomiting. During and after my swim lessons with B, I was completely stressed out and focused on perfecting my form, all the while being frustrated over my lack of endurance. So then A, the triathlon coach, made an offhand comment that I should be able to swim much further than 50 meters at this point. I was really disappointed to hear that, even though I knew it was true. I hemmed and hawed over that for an entire weekend. The following Tuesday, rather than starting off with swimming drills and obsessing over my form and breathing, I decided I'd just get in the pool and swim freestyle, in whatever way felt comfortable. When I got to the 50 meter mark, I felt tired, especially in my legs, but I took it slowly, stayed relaxed, and kept going. I hit the 100 meter mark, considered stopping, but thought maybe I could eke out another 50. And I did! And then another 50...and another...and so on and so forth until I realized I'd gone - insert "Holy Crap!" here - 400 meters. That's a quarter of a mile! That's actually a real distance! There are some sprint triathlons in which you only have to swim a quarter of a mile. Bouyed (haha a swim pun, see what I did there?) by my breakthrough, I went to the pool this morning with the intention of doing the the same thing. Just relaxing and swimming until I could not swim anymore. I can't even believe I'm about to say this, but I swam 800 meters without stopping!! A half mile! That's an even more legitimate distance. I wish I had a logical explanation as to why I can suddenly swim so much farther than I could two weeks ago, but I guess I have to assume it was mainly a mental thing. As I've experienced with running (many, many times) sometimes it really is mind over matter. 

Speaking of running...I also hit a distance PR in that activity last weekend. 15 miles! I hadn't ever run more than a half marathon without getting injured. Of course, marathon training sort of necessitates running, well, twice that distance, eventually. I was a little intimidated and a lot paranoid that I'd hit 13.2 miles and suddenly be hit with another stress fracture. Luckily that didn't happen, and actually, I felt surprisingly good during the 15 miles, despite the fact that it was pouring rain and my running buddy had convinced me to run on some muddy, hilly trails. Of course, I may have felt good in part because I was running particularly slowly, but hey, I still moved my feet for 15 miles. I think I may have even found a fuel that will work for me - the Clif Shot! 

Since the post I wrote a while back about fueling with Gu, I've tried a variety of things, including a Honey Stinger gel (see here) and Clif Shot Bloks. Both went down much more easily than the Gu, and tasted better too, but they (at least I assume they were the culprits) gave me stomach cramps. The Clif Shot, although the flavor wasn't all that great, did not cause any such issues (it was Razz, for anyone who is curious, and I am 97.3% sure that Razz is slang for raspberry, although from the taste, I couldn't tell 100%). Of course, the lack of stomach cramps could easily be attributed to any other number of circumstances surrounding the run...amount of water consumed, the Oatmeal Squares I ate beforehand, etc. I am supposed to run 16 miles this weekend (almost every long run until the marathon will be a new distance PR, which is quite scary to think about), so I'll try another Clif Shot and see what happens.

Oh, and as long as I am disclosing my personal records in athleticism, I might as well let you all know that I did 40 push-ups. In a row. I am pretty sure that is also a personal best. The only reason I did 40 push-ups is that a 14-year-old told me there was no way I could do it, and I said "Yes, I could!" and she said "No you couldn't!" and said I "Uh-huh!" and she said "Nuh-uh!" and I said "Could too!" and she said "Could not!" and this went on for about 10 minutes and then to shut her up I did 40 push-ups. So there! Um, anyway...

Before I end this post, I just want to *knock on wood* because I'm superstitious, and God forbid tooting my own horn should result in some sort of terrible setback or horrific injury...

What's that? Biking personal records? Oh...well...Pink Lightning has, in fact, traveled a record number of miles over the past few weeks...by riding in the back of my car. Er...let me work on that...