Time to get serious

So I'm firmly convinced that part of my malaise the last week or so has been the lack of a solid training plan. One week from today I have the Great Aloha Run, which I am basically ready for. I went to their website to look up my results for last year and they are not there?!?!?!?! I know I did the race I have the race report in my blog. I have the finishers shirt. I have the card they send with your results. I have my number. I even have a finisher's photo hanging on my wall. So why am I not in their databank?? Who knows.

My next race is the Lanikai triathlon on April 13th. That's a sprint and the swim can be a little rough depending on the wind that day. But after that is the Honolulu Triathlon which is an Olympic distance. I've set my goals for the Honolulu and am using Lanikai as a training race. So I've worked out a training plan that has me actually accomplishing something each workout. Yea!! A Goal!!!

This morning was swimming and it was a distance, steady pace swim. I've been playing around swimming lately, using TI (which is great) but not really doing anything. This would be my first swim with a purpose. Maintain a steady pace and swim 1500 m. I did it without too many problems. I had more trouble with my mp3 player than I did my swimming :) I timed each 500m and they came out as follows: 15:13; 14:12; 13:18. I was not trying to do that. I felt like I was keeping a constant, steady rhythm the whole time so the increase in speed was a natural occurrence. Sweet. Also, I wasn't pushing really hard. I knew I had a long time to swim and I wanted to make it the whole way. Looking back I probably could have pushed a little bit harder. I'm pleased and I like having a specific workout to do.

On a completely different note. I heard a study on the news about artificial sweetener. It says that artificial sweetener in stuff can actually make you gain weight. Seems you body tastes the sweetness and revs things up getting ready for the calorie load associated with sweetness. Only with artificial sweetener, there is no calorie load. So you end up eating more to compensate. I knew that!!! I stopped drinking diet soda years ago because I said it would make me hungry. I didn't know why and I could not explain it but when I drank diet soda I ate more. People said I was crazy and now I've been proven right. HA!!!!

Has anyone else noticed that blogger has changed their spell checking program??? I do not like it because you have to look for the little red line instead of the yellow highlight. Ugh!!!