I used to be a "pool rat". Growing up, I was at the neighborhood pool from Memorial Day until Labor Day, in rain or in shine, typically from open until close. I was obsessed with the pool. Even when the temps were below 70 degrees (we could only swim if it was 70 or above), my friends and I would hang out with the lifeguards and continously call the weather line to see if the thermometer had ticked up just a couple more degrees. My hair turned green every summer and I'm sure I reaked of chlorine (who needs showers every day when you are disinfected by chlorine?). I was definitely a pool rat.
I joined the Blue Ash Rec Center yesterday and it is an awesome place! I only had to pay $35 for a year-long membership since I live in Blue Ash. They just opened up a brand new fitness center (new cardio equipment and strength equipment), which is incredibly nice. The locker rooms have a sauna and a whirlpool. The pool is great as well. It's not new, but it's a huge pool. They have 3 lanes dedicated to lap swimming at all times, and they have a huge digital clock and a pace clock right next to the lanes. It was better than I had hoped!
I jumped in and swam 1000 meters total and did 20 minutes of pool running. Pool running is quite interesting. I'm not sure how it's supposed to feel, but I did feel like I was working hard. The swimming went well. My shoulders gave me some grief (I've had shoulder issues since my competitive swimming days in high school), so I need to figure that out...but nothing a little break with some stretching didn't fix. I'm hopefully heading back to the pool today to get another swim/pool run in. Yesterday I broke up the 1000 meters into 100s. Maybe today I'll do some longer distance swims (2x 500s or something like that).
It felt great, though, to be in the pool! It brings back fond memories of all the time I spent swiming up and down those things.
I'm picking up my race packet for Ride Cincinnati this afternoon. Eric and I are attempting the 45.2 mile ride on Sunday. It should be an interesting endeavor.
In other fitness news, I started Jillian Michael's 30 day Shred yesterday. It's a DVD and there are 3 levels on it. Each level has a 20 minute workout which incorporates strength, cardio, and abs. You're supposed to do it every day for 30 days to see big results. I measured myself in a bunch of areas yesterday (I'll keep the measurements a secret), and I'll report back at the end of 30 days about how much I lost from each. I'm not going to go off how much weight I lose because I'm doing so many other exercises, but this will be my only strength regimen, so I'll go off measurements to measure my success.
Day 1 30-Day Shred Report:
Level 1 wasn't too bad. Jillian throws some push-ups into the workout, which I was able to do one set of them normally, but then had to do the modified version for the next set. My legs are sore today (not from the push-ups, obviously). My upper body isn't too bad. I think I came into this with an advantage since I was already doing strength training 3x per week. There is no time frame on how long you should stay at Level 1. Jillian just says to move to Level 2 when you are ready, whatever that means. I'm thinking I'll stay at Level 1 for a week and then move up. Then I'll stay at Levels 2 and 3 for about 1.5 weeks each to round off my 30 days. I'll provide more updates as the 30 Day Shred adventure continues!
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