Got an outside run in for the first time this week and it went great. It wasn't part of my training plan (today was planned as a rest day), but my training plan is built around a Sprint triathlon, which ends with a 5K (3.1 mile) run. I have a half-marathon to do in April, so I knew going in I'd be adding some running mileage to my training plan.
I took last Saturday as a rest day and it almost drove me nuts not doing anything. Tuesday is also a rest day, and two rest days felt like too many, especially since one of them was on a weekend.
I got 4 miles in today, and ran 3.7 of it. I was doing intervals of 1 mile running followed by .1 mile walking, and it worked well. I won't say the last .7 miles (my last running interval) was exactly fun, because that part really kicked my butt, but I was happy I got all the running mileage I wanted done. Overall, I finished the 4 miles in 49:28, which equates to an average pace of 12:22 minutes per mile.
This is the best running workout I've ever done, and I'm happy to have done it outside. Running outside is much harder than me than running on a treadmill, so being able to run 1 mile nonstop multiple times is a huge victory for me.
More and more I'm seeing the benefits of consistent training in all three disciplines. I have no doubt that the training in each discipline is helping me in the other two. Running and biking feed off each other by strengthening my legs and getting my lungs accustomed to the exertion, and swimming especially helps the other two as it improves my breath control and breathing in general. I don't know if anyone one discipline is helping me any more than another, but I'm certain that if I was only running, or biking, I wouldn't be making strides this large this quickly.
There were multiple times this week I really felt like skipping my workout (last night in particular, as I was at work later than normal), but I kept forcing myself to keep doing. I read once that "It takes 4 weeks to notice a change in your body, 8 weeks for close friends to notice it, and 12 weeks for the world at large to notice it". I'm not sure of the veracity of that statement, as I found it on the internet, but I'm choosing to believe it. Tomorrow's workout will mark 2 full weeks of working out almost every day, and I want to give it the 4 weeks to see if I do see a change in my body.
It's not that I haven't already started noticing changes; everyone that's been reading this knows that I've been impressed and happy with the progress I've been making with my workouts. But I have yet to notice a real change in the mirror, and while that's not the main goal, it is a very important secondary goal to me. I got into triathlon mainly to do a triathlon (and eventually an Ironman, so I can go around saying "Yeah, I'm an Ironman, just like Tony Stark"), but also to help me lose my gut. I'm not really self-conscious about my weight in general, but I don't like my gut. My weight isn't a big factor to me; if I weighed what I do now but didn't have a gut, I'd be happy. But I do want to lose my rather expanded middle section, and I'm hoping I'll start to see progress on that front over the next few weeks.
To that end, I've been trying to slowly modify my eating habits. I'm trying to snack less, and when I do snack I try to go for fairly healthy alternatives like green apples and sunflower seeds as opposed to chocolate and potato chips. I've also been drinking more water and less beer. I'll never cut beer out completely (I like it too much for that), but I'm down to one or two a week with dinner instead of 3 or 4. I'll still occasionally have one when we go out for dinner (especially on special occasions), but I've even cut back on that. Hopefully soon I'll see the improvement I'm looking for.
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