March Madness

I did my last swim of March this morning at the Roy Rec Center. I wanted to take it easy, given how many yards I've been piling up over the past two weeks, so I considered everything today to be bonus yards. March was a great month for my fitness, home life and overall health.

I started losing weight again after a two-month stalemate, where I leveled out and couldn't drop any more pounds. At least I wasn't gaining. I only dropped three pounds this month, but it was still a pleasant surprise. Only two more pounds and I will have dropped 40 since beginning this exercise campaign a little over a year ago. I also started a new job two weeks ago which looks promising so far. It's already given me better hours so I can spend a few more hours with Jen every day, compared to my last job where we only saw each other in passing in the mornings, late at night and on my days off.

My shoulder injury is also seeing vast improvement. It seemingly came out of nowhere after little-to-no progress at all during the past three to four months. I'm certain it has to do with me improving my stroke and my breathing, which is helping strengthen my shoulder, rather than weakening it, like it was doing before. I've had almost zero pain during the past two weeks, with only the occasional soreness, which I think is simply the normal aches you get when you push yourself by increasing yardage. It's sore, not injured, if that makes any sense. It's a totally different thing.

Anyway, here's what I did today.

Warm up
200 free
Core
1,750 free
Cool down
100 breast

I wanted to see how fast I could do a mile, although my expectations were low. I pushed it hard and finished in 30.02 and was flabbergasted when I saw that I was only two seconds shy of a 30-minute mile. That's not great, but still much better than expected. I have plenty of time to knock a few minutes off that before the GSL swim in June. I'm also feeling more confident about going for the 10k at Deer Creek and the 7-mile Bear Lake Crossing in August. Those two would be difficult, but obtainable goals for me in the coming months.

This puts March in perspective.
January: 1.73 miles
February: 3.15 miles
March: 14.89 miles

It surely has been a mad March!

Total distance: 2,050 yards