The slow lane

I'm back at it. This whole week I woke up early to do an hour of core work, and I'm happy to report that I haven't lost everything. In fact, when it comes to yoga/pilates/core work, my strength is there, it not a little shaky at first.

And then there's the endurance part. Yesterday I got in the pool for the first time in almost two months, and in one sense, it went much better than I expected. Freestyle was good; breathing in on my side followed by several strokes breathing out allowed me to take shallow, quick breaths -- as I usually do -- and swim fairly easily. Backstroke, in which my breathing isn't as controlled and uses my full lung capacity, wasn't so good.  My lungs burned and I had to stop to let them calm down.

That was all in the first 10 min., and slowly I made it through just over 40 min. of swimming. Granted, I wasn't going hard or fast, and I had to stop to rest frequently (if only for a few seconds), but I kept it up. Swimming slowly really allowed me to focus on my storke, so that's a plus

The weird thing is that the burning I'm describing had nothing to do with my asthma -- which has been really bad lately -- or anything cardiovascular. My muscles weren't tired and my energy level was good. I just couldn't fill my lungs up with air as much as I wanted -- or needed.

The plan was to try to go to spin tomorrow just to get back on the bike -- I wouldn't expect to keep up. Knowing what I know about cycling and its requiring my lung capacity, I don't think it's a good idea.

I'll get there. I guess it's just going to take a while.

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I've been scouting what my sprint triathlon would be -- the one I want to have early in the season, June. I'm not so sure it's a good idea at this point. Provided I'm able to go decently hard beginning in April, I'll only have two and a half months. I'd technically be able to complete it, but my time will suck, and I'll get mad about it. Not sure how this'll play out.