Author: Silver Lining Sunset

I’m going to try to blog about my triathlon training so I can come back and read it some day.  It’s still a little weird to think I am going to be doing a triathlon in 3 months…less than 3 months.  They haven’t sent out the training schedule yet and I’m eager to see it.  I have so much going on in the next few months during weekends that I’m afraid I will miss the big workouts.

I’m also not sure how much training needs to be done as well as when and where I will be training.  Writing about this just makes me think of so many more things I need to do like get my bike tuned up, get a swim cap, uh..swim, go bike riding, run? Gah.

Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there.

Had our first group workout today at La Jolla Shores.  It was really nice out today.  Super hot but since we had to go in the water, it wasn’t too bad.  I was one of the first to arrive and spent some time talking to the guy in charge and his wife.  We had maybe about 10-12 people come out to the training.  Most of these people are all veterans.  I think only one other girl hadn’t done a triathlon before but she seemed to be training for a marathon.  Everyone besides me was in really good shape…haha.

Our first workout was called the pit of despair.  We basically paired up across from our partner all lined up and starting digging.  We had to dig about 8-10 inches down and make a pit about 6 feet wide.  It was really tiring digging into the sand.  It was to work on the pulling motion.  Man, you’d know why it is called the pit of despair about 5 minutes in.  It took a long while to do that.

Oh, I forgot to mention we had a warm-up jog.  We were located just south of the south bathrooms on the beach and had to jog to the main lifeguard tower.  Anyway, after the pit of despair we went into the water about waist deep and headed parallel until we got to the next lifeguard tower.  Then we went up to the sand and did burpee broad jumps all the way to the next tower.  Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever done so many burpees and for that long.  You basically do a burpee with the push up and then you jump with two feet forward.  It took forever!  The lifeguard towers aren’t very close together and they feel really far apart when you are basically jumping across.  Man, I was so tired and it was so hot!  Dripping sweat.

Then we went back into the water and moved parallel but backwards to the next tower.  Then we got out and ran to the pier and back.  I think it was about a mile long.  I haven’t run a full mile in like 2 years lol.  I did that 1 mile mostly w/o stopping the other week.  These people run fast!  I just went my own pace and came in last.   They waited for me which was nice.  My knee hurt a little bit but I was trying not to think about it.  I think running on the sand helped with less impact.

Then back into the water to side shuffle one way, then the next, all the way back to our tent.  People kept saying they saw sting ray and to be careful.  I was really scared of getting stung even though I didn’t see any.  I did see this huge halibut which was really cool!  I also walked through a school of fish – it was warm in that area.  I thought they might bite me.  They didn’t.  People kept saying there was a leopard shark but I didn’t see it.  I probably would have freaked out even though they’re supposed to be harmless.

When we got back to the sand, we had to fill the pit of despair back up.  This time using the pushing motion.  That was super tiring too.  I think my arms are going to be sore tomorrow.  All these people kept stopping to watch what we were doing.  I probably would too.  Why are these 10 people digging a giant shallow hole in the ground?  It was probably 15-20ft long and 6 ft wide.

And that was the workout.  Overall, it wasn’t too bad.  We didn’t do any real swimming which is what I was afraid of.  People were pretty nice.  My shoulder was hurting a little bit before and it hurts now too.  I either hurt it from football or basketball.  It was nice to workout, made me feel much more energized.

The end.