Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Working Hard on Wednesdays

Sunday was my off day. My aunt and uncle brought my daughter and niece home from church camp and we spent the day at my parents visiting while the kids swam. It was a relaxing day after the hills of Saturday.

Monday's schedule got a little messed up due to my daughter's appointment with the ENT. I didn't get my swim in, but I did try to get in my run. I set out to do a 6 mile run with 6 hill repeats in there. I got the six miles in, but I only got 5 hill repeats in. And I had to walk the last one. My quads were toast after the hills Saturday and my body was rebelling against the heat and humidity.

Since I didn't swim Monday, I went swimming Tuesday after work and got in my 2,000 meters. No yoga Tuesday night as my instructor is still on vacation. I don't think she should be allowed to take vacations during my training! (ha - just kidding)

So today was my normal bike day and track practice day. There is a lady helping out with the run team that I met last spring when I did the CapTexTri with Team in Training. I had mentioned to her that I try to bike on Wednesdays before track and she said she might join me sometimes. Well today was a day she joined me. And it was great. We talked the whole time, so I wasn't focusing on how far I'd gone or how far I had left to go. The only way we knew how many laps we had done was by looking at the mileage on my computer (which actually got started a little late because it wasn't snapped in properly at first and I didn't notice it until sometime during the first lap). Anyway, the goal was to get in 20 miles. The veloway is 3.3 miles around. Six laps gets you real close to 20 miles but we decided to go ahead and do another one. I wouldn't have done it without her there. And that's the thing I love most about Team in Training. I'm sure it holds true for other groups as well. You spend so much time with these people and you are training for the same common goal, so you get to be good friends. The mileage on my computer at the end showed 21.25 miles. It was a little more than that thanks to the computer not working at first, but since I don't know how far, 21.25 is what will go in the books.

After the bike ride we headed to the Smoothie Shop for a smoothie. I'd never had one from there but decided to get the energizer smoothie. It was pretty good and hit the spot. Cold, sweet and yummy. We then headed over for track practice.

Track practice tonight was a decending ladder. We would warm up a little bit, do our drills and then do our speedwork. Speedwork consisted of the following:
1000 meters fast
2:00 recovery
800 meters fast
1:45 recovery
600 meters fast
1:30 recovery
400 meters fast
1:15 recovery
200 meters fast
2 laps to cool down
core work

The goal of the decending ladder is to get faster toward the end. Yeah right. My goal was to keep a steady pace for each 400 meter lap (1 lap = 400 meters). So here are my splits

1000 meters:
lap 1 = 2:01
lap 2 = 2:07
1/2 lap = 1:04

recovery: 1:43

800 meters:
lap 1 = 2:08
lap 2 = 2:16

recovery: 1:50

600 meters:
lap 1 = 2:09
1/2 lap = 1:07

recovery: 1:51

400 meters:
lap 1 = 2:08

recovery: 1:55

200 meters:
1/2 lap = :55

Not bad after riding 21 miles on the bike! I felt good about it. The more I do well at track practice after riding the bike, the better I feel about the bike run transition for the Longhorn HIM.

All in all, it was a good day.

I also took pictures of the lake near where we run and some of the trail that goes around the lake. And this is after several days of no rain.



1 comment:

Dances with Corgis said...

Nice workout! It's nice to have someone there to chat with so you are distracted. Although, sometimes I get TOO distracted and forget about the workout!