Firsts

This has been a week of firsts: First swim class, first day staying at work past 6, first time running in a swim suit. Yes, I decided to try it. If the ITU girls and even some Ironman pros (Bree Wee and Fernanda Keller come to mind) can do it, it can't be that bad, right? It's definitely not the most comfortable, but it's not so bad for 20 minutes, either. That's all I had to run, and I did it on the dark trails behind BFY. Because of the darkness, it was actually a fabulous run. I could not be distracted by anything because I couldn't see anything, so I was focused on looking straight ahead and thinking about how I was moving my legs and how I should not be moving my chest when I breathed and how I should breathe through my nose and expanding my diaphragm instead.

I forgot the Garmin and used my watch and the markers instead: Mile 0–1: 7:30.53; Mile 1–1.6 (turnaround at the entrance to Crockett Park): 4:10.85; Mile 1.6–2.6: 7:06.88 (18:48 cumulative, so I ran another 2 minutes to hit 20). My goal was to negative split the first and last miles, and I definitely succeeded (23+ seconds!). It was the same part of the trail that I was running on both directions, so that felt great. Then I already had my swim suit on, so I jumped in the pool.

On the way out, I ran into a fellow Ironman, Robert. He recently moved here and was thrilled to have met another Irongirl. I'm sure I'll see him around the Y now, training.