Like Ben mentioned we have decided to do the YMCA's sprint triathlon. I have been swimming and let me tell ya, there is a lot more to swimming that one would think. You have to have your breathing down, you have to have your kick figured out, get your hips in line etc... Luckily enough I have a friend who is awesome at swimming and she gave me some pointers. She told me to help aid in my breathing to use flippers and that will help you to not only have time to get your breathing situated but to also help with finding where your hips need to be and to aid with kicking.
I put the flippers on and man how I glided like a sea creature. It allowed me to kick more slowly to help give me time to adjust my breathing, however, using the flippers for the first time on my second pool length the flippers began to feel heavy. She also told me to kick from the hips not from the knees, like people naturally tend to do. With the flippers on they also help you keep your legs a bit stiffer. It takes some getting use to them but they do help a lot and they let you know where things need to be when you don't wear them. My swimming has improved a lot with that advice. I still struggle with breathing but all in do time. I try to get to the pool on the mornings that I do yoga and I try and go on Sunday's as well. What is going to be hard is to adjust to perhaps sharing a lane during the triathlon.
On an other note, Ben found this great article from Men's Health talking about the power of high intensity interval training. The article showcased a workout that Ben described in a few posts back. We did it together and then did sprints and I was sore in the same place Ben was (on that upper hip area). While doing the sprints (which by the way I have not done since I was in high school) I was humbled by the fact that my 8 year old son was a tad faster than me. Needless to say I awoke the hibernation slumber my fast twitch muscles were in and they reacted the same as if you awoke a bear from it's hibernation as well.
I loved that work out and I returned to it yesterday. I began the circuits and during my second round while doing mountain climbers my left groin just gave out I couldn't continue with the mountain climbers. I pulled my groin muscle and my God how that hurt!! You could say it's my first "injury" I attribute the injury to my lack of stretching. Once I finished my workout the stiffness quickly began to sink in. It hurt to adjust my leg in the car on the way home, just barely lifting it up killed. It was a good thing that the next day was my yoga day. I took the morning off of swimming and went straight to yoga. Yoga seemed to do the trick. It's much better now. I am going to take tomorrow off from exercise and give it just a little bit more rest before I hit the pool on Thursday.