Meredith takes to the Streets!

Week 1 of my 14-week triathlon training program is off to a good start.

Last night I did my first serious 12 mile training ride - out on real roads, with real cars and real hills. I have been "riding" my bike once a week for the past month or so, but I quickly realized on the ride last night that I know nothing about cycling. Lucky for me, one of our friends, Cody, is a very good cyclist and he has taken me under his wing. He's been cycling seriously for about 5 years, and he is a wealth of information. After a one hour ride last night, I am much more comfortable with my clipless pedals and I'm even starting to understand the why, what and when of gear changing.

Before the ride last night, I was terrified to change gears because I was convinced I would throw the chain. But Cody explained that not changing gears really isn't option - so I started changing gears, and then I kind of got the hang of it. We rode in a few trafficky areas, but Cody taught me the etiquettes of riding on the road and which hand signals to use. I had to leave the signaling up to him, as my hands were clutching the handlebars for dear life most of the time. But overall, my confidence was boosted. I feel like knowing what I am doing on the bike will make me a better rider, and more importantly, a safer rider!

This morning I swam 1000 yards. This is the furthest I have ever swam - on purpose at least. It took me 25 minutes and 13 seconds, but I have no idea if that is a decent time for swimming 1000 yards. I was worried about losing track of my laps, so I set 20 pennies on a kickboard at the end of my lane, next to my water bottle. After every down and back (50 yards) I moved one penny to the right. After going down and back 20 times, I was done! I alternated every 50 yards between the crawl and the breast stroke. As I get stronger in the crawl, I will try to alternate between 100 yards crawl, 50 yards breast stroke, 100 yards crawl, etc. Eventually, I will be able to do 1000 yards crawl.

My workouts so far this week:
Tuesday am: Run 2 miles (19:05 min)
Tuesday pm: Ride 12 miles (roughly 60 minutes...definitley want to get faster on the bike!)
Wednesday am: 1000 yard swim (25:13)

And my scheduled workouts for the rest of the week:
Thursday am: 3 mile run
Thursday pm: 12 mile ride
Saturday am: 5 mile run
Sunday pm: 15 mile ride, 2 mile run (brick workout)

Some miscellaneous pictures from the weekend:

Sunday was a cool, rainy day and Emma took the opportunity to snooze on the couch.

She was not happy when I woke her up with the flash from the camera!

Mother's Day (yes, Emma counts) came a week early when Chad surprised me by cutting off all of his hair! I have been pestering him to cut it for months, and he finally decided that it was time to get a cut. After going to my favorite place for lunch on Sunday (Chipotle), Chad took me to the mall for a "surprise" - I had a feeling we were headed to the salon, but I wasn't 100% sure. When we stopped right outside of "Max and Mia's" my heart jumped. He got probably 7-8 inches cut off - I was afraid the stylist would slip on all the hair! I took the picture above on the way home after the shearing...what a hunk!

I had some leftover pico de gallo from Chipotle, so on Monday evening I decided to make a black bean burrito for dinner. I only used 5 ingredients: tortilla, brown rice, black beans, reduced fat mozzarella cheese and pico de gallo. It was delicious, filling, and pretty healthy! I scooped up the burrito "droppings" with Lays Baked Scoops tortilla chips. I will probably start eating this quick and easy meal at least once a week. I just noticed that you can see Tiger Wood's eyes peering out at you in the top right hand corner of the photo...that is my Gatorade bottle!