After the Indialantic Boardwalk Tri, I didn't have any more races that I had signed up for and I was wondering what I would do to keep busy between then and starting my marathon training (more on that later).  Ryan was going to be in Las Vegas for the weekend of 7/10 - 7/13 and I saw that there was a tri up in Orlando.  It seemed like a perfect time to spend some more time with my friends who live up there and do a race at the same time.  After work on Friday 7/11, I packed up my car with all sorts of goodies and headed up to Orlando (I dropped Willow off at the dog boarding place for the weekend).

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to improve my swimming endurance.  At each triathlon, I usually would make it about 100m before I was gasping for air and switched to side stroke or breast stroke…for the rest of the race.  Ugh.  In previous years I tried to meet with a swim coach or follow regimented workouts that included drills and speedwork but it just didn’t work for me.  So this time I made a plan for myself to swim twice a week and slowly build endurance.  Instead of focusing on swimming quickly, I decided that the only rule I had to follow was that I wasn’t going to get to stop and take breaks.  I started with 8 sets of 75m freestyle, 25m side stroke or breast stroke.  That way I could focus on just swimming 75m before I got a short (active) rest and it allowed me to control the length of the rest more accurately.  Each workout I increase the freestyle distance or number of sets.  Recently I did 1200m total with 8 sets of 125m freestyle, 25m active rest.  After the workout I was remember what all went on in my head during this swim and thought you guys might enjoy what 1200m feels like to me…

So I mentioned previously that I did the Pineapple Man Sprint Triathlon in early June.  Well after that, I guess I caught Triathlon Fever because I just can't seem to stop.  After Pineapple Man, I did the Indialantic Boardwalk Triathlon on 6/22.

I told you about the 5k that I ran in on Saturday 5/30 but I didn't get to tell you about the Pineapple Man Triathlon that I did on Sunday 6/1.  There were several of my friends running the race too: Tris, Nic and Angela (coworkers from Piper), Josh & Carolyn (friends from college) and Don & Rob (two of Ryan's coworkers).  The race consisted of a .34 mi swim in the Intracoastal waterway, a 15.9 mile bike ride and a 3.4mi run.  The swim was nice and calm but it rained on us during the bike and there was lots of wind and standing water on the roads.  Of course the rain stopped just in time to make the run nice and hot, LOL.  But it was a really fun race and I had my best average bike speed ever (even with the rain!) so now I'm excited to do more tri's.  I've signed up for another one on 6/22 so more about that coming soon!

This past weekend, I did two races in two days!  Now that I work in Melbourne and can't keep going to bootcamps in Vero, I have to do something to keep me active.  So I've been signing up for races like crazy.  On Saturday, we did a 5k to support our friend Al  and show people how important it is to know CPR.

Are you loving all these new recipes as much as I am?  I knew I wouldn't be able to do such a strict diet just eating grilled chicken and veggies.  If I tried to do that I would have gotten bored and given up the first week.  So I've been trying really hard to come up with fun, easy recipes that are healthy and tasty.  It occurred to me recently that I've never made crab cakes!  Pretty surprising considering my husband is from Maryland and I LOVE crab cakes :)  Here's another healthy dinner or lunch option sure to satisfy any seafood eater.

I've got another tasty dinner recipe for ya!  This time I made a Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken (inspired by this original recipe: http://400caloriesorless.com/?p=9103) and some baked parmesan zucchini (inspired by this original recipe: http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2012/08/baked-parmesan-zucchini-chips/).  The zucchini are probably my new favorite side dish, they are SOO good.

Ryan has been such a good sport about eating all the healthy new recipes I've been trying out so I decided to try and make him something special for lunch this week.  Nothing too crazy, but something he would REALLY like and that would be out of the ordinary compared to what I usually pack for him.  It all started with a BOGO sale at Publix (gets me every time...)

Time to share another healthy, low carb recipe!  I had a hankering for a big 'ole plate of spaghetti with meat sauce...but I didn't want to blow my diet either.  So I decided to make spaghetti squash with baked meat sauce.

Over the past year, I've been making really good progress on losing weight and getting healthier.  A year ago, I weighed 148lbs and had 31% body fat, yikes!  As of January 2014, I had gotten down to around 131lb - 132lb and 23% body fat which is much better - but not good enough.  I wanted something to really help push me over the plateau and get to where I want to be.  So I decided to sign up for another bootcamp - I know what you're thinking "didn't you do like four of those last year?".  The answer is "yes", I did do several bootcamps last year but they were all 4 weeks and I never focused on my diet very hard.  This bootcamp is an 8 week bootcamp designed for Bikini Competitors and is very focused on heavy lifting and clean eating.