Well, so much for my goal to update once a week! Unfortunately, the only excuse I can come up with is that I was busy... I know, the truth is not very exciting.
So what exactly have I been doing? To sum up, school, training, sleeping, and cleaning.
First, school. I've been handling my second semester at UVic much better than my first. Discovering the stress and anxiety of falling behind, I have been doing my best to stay up to date in all my classes, which means LOTS of reading. I've gotten my first midterms over with and am now enjoying reading break. Even though classes only started 6 weeks ago, a break from the books was definitely needed!
Second, training. January sped by and we are deep into February with March just around the corner. My first big competition is not until June, so I have a few solid months of quality training to get under my belt before I hit the races. My swimming has been coming along surprisingly well, and I have finally broken through the dreaded "plateau" that I've been on since I was 15, which is something that seems to happen to a lot of female swimmers around that age. It is really exciting to see my hard work from the past few years paying off, as I get faster in workouts. With an 800 time trial bound to come up soon, I am very excited to see what I can do.
Over reading break, I was hoping to go somewhere warm and sunny for a training camp, but unfortunately, those plans fell though. Staying in Victoria in some ways will be very good for me, and will make managing school a lot easier. And just because we are not going anywhere, doesn't mean there won't be a training camp!
Third, sleeping. Sleep is crucial to being able to do the first two well and consistently. I avoided getting sick all winter, and hope to keep up this good routine by continuing to get enough sleep, which can get really hard around exam time. Now that reading break is here, and an undoubtedly a hard training camp is about to begin, I don't think being in bed by 9:00 pm will be a challenge!
Fourth, cleaning...one of the things I hate about living by myself. It was an amazing discovery to find that the dishes do not magically become clean, or that my clothes don't just pick themselves up off the floor...and the amount of time it takes to do all these things!! Really mom, I don't know how you do it.
Until next time (no promises on when that will be!)
Christine
