Spring Break!

Spring break has begun for the San Francisco school system, which means I get time off too! Woooot.

I kicked off Day 1 with the most intense work out day. A 40-minute, 4 mile run on sand, cool down, home for a few hours, then a two hour swim lesson. I haven't run on sand in a long, long time. A friend/athletic trainer is leading a running workshop to prepare for the San Francisco Marathon in June. It's costing me about $100 for 24 running sessions, which is actually a really good rate. The whole idea of paying-to-run is kind of silly, I'll admit, but I'll be able to improve my time and running form. At the very least, running with other people will motivate me to run faster (I was dead last, yay me!!). When I run alone, I tend to settle into a comfort zone that lets me coast along nicely. I'd like to be able to run faster than a 10-minute mile - which I only do when I try really hard.

In reality, I'm doing alright for someone who spent most of February on a plane, eating airport food and drinking airport cocktails.

A few hours after that, I had my second swimming lesson with another friend. I learned that I don't know how to use a kickboard. I can kick just fine at the wall, but kick while holding onto a kickboard? Nope! Today I worked on my breast stroke form and learned freestyle. Once I learned how to kick, freestyle was pretty easy, and much more efficient as a swimming form than breast stroke. Even the lifeguard said I was doing pretty well...you know, swimming the 11 meters from the wall to the guard bench before I got tired.

Now that I can swim, though, I can work on my form and eventually swim longer distances.

I also learned how to tread. The biggest challenge was learning not to panic if my head sinks underwater.

I'm happy with my progress. My goal last week was to learn how to do all these things in the water before the end of this week, and I did!

Next goal: swim well enough to swim in the pool during lap-swim times. Also tread for 30 seconds without letting my head sink into the water.

I'm taking tomorrow off from any kind of exercise. My legs are killing me. Getting up hurts.