It's all new territory from here...

I knew this would be a long training year, pushing myself to new training totals and reaching well beyond my limits. I can tell you this...I did not expect, in my 3rd week of training in the 2009 season, to already break my own existing records for distance covered.

I swam more yardage this past week than I did in any week ever before, even when training for Vineman.

Not only that, I swam more yardage this past week than I did in the entire months of January, February, or August 2008.

Now before you get the notion that I'm swimming superhuman amounts, let's say I really avoided swimming where possible last year!

The highlights of this past week were my first "long" run since Vegas and a 90 minute long hill ride with a 20 minute run off the bike (I *heart* bricks!).

Notice I don't mention swimming.

We are having an unseasonably warm stretch here in Northern CA. Rather than the usual 30s to 50s that we see this time of year, it's in the 70s! Who wouldn't want to enjoy that with lots of outdoor training? Today began a rest week for me - I can only hope this weather lasts until things build again next week.

Training totals for Week 3 (January 5-11):
Swim: 6300 yards
Bike: 45 miles
Run: 10.4 miles
Strength/Core/Flexibility: 2 hours
Total time: ~10.5 hours

On the dog side of things, Friday's trip to the snow thoroughly wore the boys out. We gave them a 4-mile walk on Saturday morning and that pretty much finished Stanley off for the rest of the weekend.