Greek Killed the Blog

Two and a half weeks ago, I started my Intermediate Greek class that I must pass in order to graduate next May.  The problem is that I took Beginning Greek 8 YEARS AGO, so you could say that I was a little rusty!  This is what has been on my mind recently...

I've been putting in at least 5-7 hours a day studying Greek, and I think it has paid off.  I got a 96% on the midterm test and that was the second highest grade in the class.  Now that doesn't happen to me very often.  And because of all the time spent on Greek, something had to go, and as you can tell, it was the blogging.  It's been too long, but I haven't quit training.

So, because of the super long break in blogging, I'm going to give you a snapshot recap of all three areas just to catch you up.  Otherwise, this blog would be the longest in history!

Swim:
I haven't been swimming a whole lot lately, because I feel so confident in it.  After the Bear Lake Olympic Triathlon that had a .9 mile swim, I haven't been stressing about the swimming.  1.2 miles isn't that much further.  I have put a couple swims in which included a terrific pool workout.  I really pushed it hard!  Jenn was there, and we did some Pulling, Kicking, and then just normal swimming.  I'm feeling really strong with swimming and feel like I'm where I need to be to put in a strong swim at Steelhead.  I'm going to the pool tonight to put in 50 laps, and then Friday, Josh and I will be doing an open-water swim in Lake Michigan.  That should be fun.

Bike:
On the Biking front, I haven't been feeling that great.  Greek hasn't given me the time I've wanted to crank out some serious mileage, so I feel like I've lost a bit of bike strength.  Josh and I rode the Steelhead course last Friday.  I cooked my legs and STILL only ended up with 19.5 average.  That sucked because I've been able to do that twice without cooking my legs.  Plus, we went for a short run afterwards, but my legs were gone.  I was pretty deflated about my poor ride!  Yesterday, I went on a ride and realized that I've slipped back into an old habit of pushing too hard a gear.  I got that fixed in my mind and started spinning really fast and in an easier gear and ended up going faster.  I think I'll be fine if I can do that.

Run:
Running is not my favorite thing to do in life.  I actually really DON'T like it that much.  But it is what I've been working on the most recently.  I started using my Ipod when I run to give me a little motivation, and that has helped.  But recently, I've been pulling a Colleen and "Running Naked!"  Well, sort of....with all my clothes on.  Colleen inspired me to not use my Garmin to see how fast I was, or wasn't, going and just run.  Here's how it turned out.  I had been feeling like every time I glanced at my watch, I would run even slower, and that would demoralize me.  So, I went out for a 7 miler still wearing my Garmin, but I promised I wouldn't look at it till mile 5.  I JUST RAN!  It wasn't too tough, and at mile 5, I 'bout peed my shorts because I was running just over 8 minute miles!  Well, this was a great opportunity to go sub-8 on a longer run, so I amped up the pace and finished 7.14 miles at 7:57's/mile!  That has got to be my best "long" run ever.  Woohoo!  It was such a confidence booster.  Two days later, I did it again, but suffered because of the heat.  I did 10 miles and felt confident about it although they were 8:45's.  Yesterday, after having a solid bike ride, I hopped off and went for a brick run.  I just did 4 miles, but did them at 8:22's, and I'm feeling better about the running.


I'm sorry that school has taken priority over blogging, but I've only got a week and a half left till my final test.  Then, 2 weeks after that, I'll be a HALF-IRONMAN!  (It just doesn't have the same ring to it that IRONMAN does...maybe one day)

Thanks for reading.