Milestone Achieved...

I BROKE THE 20 MINUTE MARK IN MY TIMED 1000 M SWIM THIS MORNING!!!!!

You have NO idea how exciting that is for me. For my first timed swim in the end of 2005 (when I first started swimming) I was at 30+ minutes. Since then, I have been trying FOREVER to get past the 20 minute marker. Last year the best I did was 20:20 minutes. Urgh! So close yet so far!

This morning though I had a great swim, I used proper technique (thank you IG!!) and worked hard and my final time was 19:34 minutes. The last 500 m it would seem I was quite consistent and doing 1 minute 50's. I do wonder; however, if I could have eeked out a bit less time had I not completely missed the wall on two of my flipturns, haha. Yup, twice I flipped, felt no wall and my feet and was like "SHITE!" as I started pulling hard at the water to get going. Is all good though, I'm quite happy with my time.

Of course, as I am a triathlete, I will now set a new time to break....not telling what it is though!! Tee hee.

After quite the swim, I achieved another milestone tonight....this time on the bike! I managed to get up to 168 bpm while doing MAP's (not sure what that acronym stands for...only know it means PAIN!).

Okay, so the task was 2 groups of 5 times a set of 2x2. Does that make sense?? The 2x2 part was 2 minutes at threshold heart rate and 2 minutes easy at 90 rpm. The most I've gotten my heart rate to in the past was 157 bpm, but when I conferred with IG this afternoon he said the goal would be to try and get it to an upper zone 4 heart rate. The operative word there being TRY.

As I have mentioned in the past, it would appear that if IG asks my body to do something, it does. Stupid body. Doesn't listen to me when I say 'ow, ow, ow'. Nooooo. Always has to do what IG says. Sheesh.

I gotta say during the first set of 2 minutes at AT I was thinking, holy shite this friggin hurts! How many more sets do I have?! And why, oh why do the 2 minutes where you are pushing hard seem to go on FOREVER, yet the 2 minute recovery just zips by! Crap!

My breathing seemed almost inhuman for the last 30 seconds of each set. It was insane. Oh, and Keith and Jenna will be happy to know that I did spit up a little in my mouth. haha. I actually giggled and said 'ew' with that one. The giggle was because of Keith and Jenna, and the ew, well, that's pretty obvious I think. At least I didn't hurl on the floor or anything!! (At this point the parental unit will be shaking their head and asking why their daughter delights in this stuff?!)

For the majority of the sets my max heart rate was 166 bpm. My total ride time was 1:30 hours. Not bad for a gal who woke up this morning totally stuffed up, with eyes partially sealed by eye goobers (yuck!) and itchy lungs. Sigh. I can't wait till this cold or whatever passes!

What a day!!!

Peace out my friends!!

PS Ignore my prior record one legged spin times. Apparantly, she says with eyes rolling, one must do the spins at a cadence above 60 rpm - according to IG. I was below that so I am back to square one. Record time has been reduced to 1:45 minute and 1:15 minute. Rats!