Workout Addiction ???

Great workout tonight.

Also, I may be getting addicted to training.

All I could think about today at school was getting home, and getting to the Y. I felt like crap all day. My allergies may be a cold instead, and I felt drained and achy at lunch and didn't eat.

However, when I got to the Y tonight, all of that went away. Immediately, I was more energized, and the swampy feeling that engulfed me all day was gone.

I started with some weight training: Lots of abs (crunches, situps, etc), and the regular exercises for arms, shoulders, and back. Also, since Amy's Dad was there, I had someone to spot me, so I did some free-weight bench presses. The last time I benched about a month ago, I could barely push a set of thirty-fives for 8 reps. Tonight, I pushed the same weight for an initial set of 10 reps, and followed that with 40 pounds on each end with a set of 8 reps.

Not incredible weight or anything, but I felt great seeing a quantitative change in such a short amount of time. I figure I was benching around 115 lbs tonight. Someday, I'd like to be able to bench my weight. As Amy pointed out, I could either loose lots more weight or get stronger. Probably I will end up with a combination of both.

After the training session upstairs, I went down to the pool. Tonight's swim workout included: 100m of warm up switching between the crawl and breaststroke wihout rest, 100m of kickboarding, 100m of left arm, 100m of right arm, 100m of crawl with leg floats, and 100m of mixed crawl and breastroke without rest to finish for a total of 500m of work.

My form and style felt much improved tonight, but for some reason, my breathing was more labored. When I swam the 100s without rest, both times my lungs started burning for more air that I could not get in. My asthma is acting up tonight as well, so I think this is related to the allergies/ cold I'm experiencing. If I can get the breathing worked out, I will change up the swim workout to include longer swims without rest.

On the way out the Y tonight, I felt great as I realized my body was spent. From head to toe, my muscles felt well-used, but not tight or over-strained. Walking to the car was an effort that required thought. Picking up my arms to put my son in the car took real effort. Strange how great that feeling can be.

Next Goal: Swim 500m without rest

Current Status: Wishing I had Greg LeMond's Lungs

Upcoming: Tuesday night Spin Class.

Update: I almost forgot! Tomorrow is my 35 Birthday. In some races, that means a new age group!