Prioritizing

This week has been a new challenge for myself. I have started my summer class, which means the need to reprioritize everything in my life. Summer classes at DU are short, four weeks, and therefore very intensive. By August 13th, I will have attended 8 classes, probably read about 800 pages worth of comparative politics, written two 4-6 page papers, and still have a final due on August 20th. So, I have had to reorganize my life as the following:
1. School. I pay enough money for my education that school undoubtedly comes first.
2. Internship. While I am not making any money with the internship, it is invaluable experience. However I am not able to bring work home anymore, everything must be done while at work.
3. Training. This has been bumped down the list in priority. During the weeks it is even harder to get all my training in. I still run with the dogs in the morning, because I know it's best for the dogs and myself. I try to keep swimming in the afternoons after my internship, it depends on where I am with reading for school. Tuesday and Thursday training sessions are going to be harder to make, with the new schedule. I will continue going to the Saturday sessions, they should always fit into my schedule. At least in the next few weeks we aren't going to have our Thursday swim practice anymore; we start open water swimming on the weekends after we get our wet suits next week!

Today's ride was really nice. It was south of Denver and west of Castle Rock, starting out of a town called Sedalia. From the beginning, I was still having technical difficulties with my clips. I know they were on right this time, I made sure of that after they were on backwards AND upside down last week. But for the life of me I still could not clip in to my pedals! I went roughly five miles on the hills still attempting to clip in; it was getting rather frustrating! Finally Justin, one of the coaches, stopped and fixed the tension on the pedal part of the clip, and I was able to clip in! It was such a relief. Now I just had to deal with the trick of teaching myself how to ride while clipped in. It changes the way I keep my knees and my feet on the pedals, and that took some getting used to. I think it should help in the long run, but today it was really hurting my knees.

Last week I had also asked Justin the all-important sock question. What I had asked was whether we should change socks in between biking and running, he said that he didn't wear socks while riding. He said that he didn't wear socks on the bike ride! Well, I decided to go with that route today. Well, not exactly decided...I forgot my socks. So I went sockless. I don't know if I need to break my shoes to barefeet, or if I just need to go back to trying to remember to bring socks at a really early hour on a Saturday morning, but my feet definitely needed some getting used to it. It also probably didn't help that this is only my second time wearing the bike shoes, and the first time while actually clipped in to the pedals. I'm sure it was just the combination of everything, but regardless I am pretty sore today.

Well, here's the route I did:



Not entirely sure of where the turn-around point was, but this looked somewhat accurate. All I know is that the turn around point was at the end of a ridiculously difficult hill.

My other fun way of training in general, not necessarily for the triathlon, is with my new toy. I just got a Wii system, and got the Wii Fit with it. I am loving it! It offers yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance exercises. Needless to say, I have a lot of improvement to work on in many different fields. But it is still great fun, and I am really feeling the workouts.