Weight Loss Journey Week 4 – Training For My First Triathlon

Hey folks! Welcome to Week 4 of my triathlon training series! (January 22, 2024 to January 28, 2024)

I am officially 26 weeks (and a few days) out from my the Spudman Triathlon scheduled on July 27, 2024!

Week 4 – Weight = 217.8 Pounds

I already did my weekly weigh-in and workout plan, and now I am ready to get started with training!

Workout #1 – 15 minutes on the bike.

Workout #2 – Weightlifting. I focused on a lower body workout. Mainly my a quad and hamstring focused movements. I warmed up by walking my dog Jaxon.

Workout #3 – 5 minute run. My legs were feeling it a little bit from my weightlifting workout. I did some foam rolling and warmed up to complete a quick 5-minute run.

Workout #4 –

400 Meter Swim. I have been doing better than I anticipated at swimming. I’ve been able to swim a lot farther than I first thought I was going to be able to. I honestly thought I was going to just die and fail epically. I focused on my technique, mainly keeping my legs straighter when I’m kicking. And, taking slower longer pulls with my arms.

This week I completed 400 meters and I was in the pool for about 45 minutes. Less than half of that was doing the laps so most of it was working on technique and breathing.

I need to work specifically on taking a breath and kicking my legs. I plan on watching my GoPro footage to see more. I felt like I was rotating my body more which felt more natural in the water, but my legs felt really weird and I don’t like that. Next week, I plan on finding a boogie board or some type of flooding board that I can practice my kicking off of.

Workout #5 – Full body weightlifting session. I finished swimming about 2:00-ish hours ago. I did a quick warm up and knocked the lifting session out of the park!

Workout #6 – 35 minute bike ride. Sunday late afternoon. I was really tired! I worked this morning and then went right into therapy afterwards. I did not get my biking completed yesterday because I forgot off work and did everything that I needed to do and then realized that I still had to make sugar cookies. By that time, it was either do my bike workout or make the sugar cookies and I couldn’t push making sugar cookies because I need them exactly when I got off work today. So, today was a brick session.

Workout #7 – 10 minute run.

After I finished the bike, my lady bits were not okay. The seat I am using is really bad. Which, is probably too much information but it is what it is. Since it turned into a beautiful afternoon and I have a pretty big backyard, I decided to run outside instead on on the elypitial. I did a quick round through the backyard to pick up all the dog poop. And then I ran in small circles for 10 whole minutes in my backyard.

Running in general really sucks! I felt like I was moving slower than mud and I think part of the reason that’s because it was really muddy out there. I’ve probably got like at least 1/4 inch of mud stuck to the bottom of my shoes. Meaning, I was literally carrying extra weight the whole time. But I ran that entire 10 minutes without stopping, without walking, and without dying! My calves are sore, and I felt it the most on the bottoms of my feet during the run.

For me, it’s really hard to start over knowing that I used to be able to run a lot. Back then 6.2 miles was nothing and I could do that any day of the week. Now, it’s like a 10 minute in the backyard and I’m out of breath and flush and moving like a sludge. But that is okay. I’m really proud of myself for doing that run.