Trying to get back on track

The triathlon's less than a month away.

I'm starting to get a bit nervous. Mostly because the illness I've been battling the last three weeks? It's really taken a toll on me and has affected my training. In other words, running, swimming and biking have kind of taken a backseat to hacking up a lung, being congested and, in general, feeling like crap.

I think the swimming will come along fine. And the biking? I'm not worried about that. It's the running that's starting to scare me. Until today, the last time I laced up my running shoes was May 31. That's a long time ago. And I'm worried the 3.1 miles I'll have to cover will be hard and that I'll die.

So today, I vowed to get back on track.

I hit the YMCA after work tonight. And instead of just jumping in the pool, I headed upstairs to the cardio room and made myself get on the treadmill to nowhere. I didn't have big plans. Just to get some kind of run in. I decided to aim for 2 miles. Not too far, not too short. Turns out, 2 miles was a good number to aim for since I struggled. I'm hoping it was because I was trying to run too fast or my body wasn't used to it after not running for so long. Or maybe it was the whole, "Hey, you've been sick for 3 weeks, ease back into this running thing slowly." Whatever it was, that was a hard 2 miles.

Afterwards, I headed down to the pool and swam 1,000 yards. And that was easier than the run I had just done. I took it nice and slow. The only downside? Remember how I pulled a muscle in my rib cage area from hacking up a lung? That was kind of sore yet, but I was still able to swim decent.

So I logged a swim and a run tonight. And my reward? A tasty strawberry shortcake. Yum.