Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks...

I went to my first swimming lesson today... ay caray. That was interesting. Well, the best way to describe it is humbling. I consider myself an athlete. I excel at a lot of different sports. I picked up cycling and racquetball recently pretty easily and love them both immensely. (I had a dream last night that I was going to be a new cycling instructor at the Y.)I have never had a swimming lesson in my life. I know how to not drown and I could pass a test to swim in the deep end when I was a kid. In fact, and I don't admit this to very many people, but I can't even open my eyes under water. I couldn't even stick my face in the water without plugging my nose or wearing snorkeling goggles until I was about 14 or 15 maybe.
So that brings me to last night. Our YMCA has a Master's Swim Team/Class. I will be going every Tuesday and Thursday night. Last night was my first night and it was a doosy. I actually did pretty well I think considering I've learned everything I know from YouTube! The coach said my arms look great, unfortunately that was all he had to say :) Because I think so much about my arms and breathing... or gasping, whatever you want to call it. I sometimes forget to kick... minor detail. As a result my form get's pretty messed up by the end. I'm excited for next Tuesday, we don't have mutual so I'll be able to go for the entire lesson (usually I can just go the whole hour on Thursday and half an hour on Tuesday). He said that he will teach me how to flip turn to do laps.
I wanted to do a triathlon last year. I checked out a million books from the library last spring. Triathlete's Training Bible, Triathlons for Dummies... literally probably five or six books. Obviously I didn't do it though. I feel like swimming was holding me back. I am determined to learn how to swim properly and do my triathlon this summer!!! I'm excited, but it sure makes me feel like and old dog.

As for my running. I'm very excited to report that I ran a 5K TWICE last week in under 30 minutes!!! Woo hoo! I am going to keep working on my pace. I've just been running 5Ks but haven't tried out some of the workouts I found yet. My best time in 30 minutes right now is 3.29 miles. Trust me, that is great for me. I'm a sprinter, not a long distance girl. Now I just need to find some new running tunes, my list is starting to get repetative.

8 minute mile???

So I've been looking into increasing my pace for a 5k. Here is my problem, I don't particularly like the long run days. But it's inevitable right? If you're going to train properly and actually improve I guess it is.
I found this training schedule online (amongst others) and I really like it. Challenging, but could it be possible? It's worth a try. Worst case scenario I still decrease my time.

12 x .25 miles resting 30 seconds between dropping to 15 seconds
6 x .50 miles resting 1 minute between each gradually decreasing recovery time
3 x 1 mile repeats resting 1 minute and gradually decreasing
.25 mile repeats with a float – run 2 to 4 miles alternating between .25 pace and 200 meter threshold pace. this one confuses me...
Lactate builders – alternate sprinting 30 seconds and 30 seconds at easy pace
3 x .24/.5/.25 run at sprint .25 then slow to 5k pace for .5 then speeding up for another .25 no recovery between distances but 5 mins recovery between each set
5k long run
4 miles at easy pace, then .5 mile at 5k pace then easy for 4 more miles, then .5 mile at 5k, then slow to easy for 2 miles. Finish 12 mile run with 1 mile at 5k goal pace.

Crazy?

*7.5 for 8 minute mile pace... hmmm. almost anyone at the gym can run a 30 minute 5k... but wouldn't it be cool to get it down to 25 minutes!? yeeeah!