Monday, March 11, 2013

I Spoke Too Soon....

The last few posts have been upbeat...and rightfully so. I had been KILLING my torture plan workouts.  Last week, however, was a whole different story.  I have been tired.  REALLY tired.  And I have actually had a couple days when I had to FORCE (what?????) myself to work out.  I didn't even go in the pool last week. Slacker.  It all started with my 12 miler.  It was ok, but I just could not hit my splits...and it was only supposed to be 11:10 pace! I felt heavy & ended up with 11:16 splits.  Not horribly off, but I had been hoping it would feel easier.  It kind of messed with my head.
I have to chant this sometimes

Then I worked a couple days & came back to double torture speedwork. I was supposed to warm-up, then do 3x1600 @ 9 minute pace with only a 1 minute break between intervals.  I am actually happy about this workout (though it sucked big-time doing it) because it was freakin' cold & windy.  The temp was 16F & the road that is a perfect mile happens to be a wind tunnel on the best of days.  9:16/9:20/8:55 for those speed intervals.  I'll take it. But I am SO ready for winter to be over.  I hate it...especially the wind.

I did a couple easy 5 milers in there and some biking on the spin bike at the gym.  The gym I go to has a Top Dog competition every march.  It's mostly lifting but there are a couple running categories, a bike one & a swim.  The run I can no longer hit at 'Gold' level since they dropped the mile time to 7 flat and the 5K time to 23 minutes for my age group.  That's 30 seconds and 2 minutes faster that the goal times last year! So in lieu of embarrassing myself (and risking getting thrown off at high velocity from a treadmill) I decided I'd try the bike one.  It's a power:weight ratio thing.  Involves kilo's, watts and a lot of math....whatevah!....I just killed the bike for the 20 minute time frame, got my average watts reading and let the gym dudes do the math.  They pretty much needed a mop to clean up the sweat after that ride!  Lol!  But I did it....earned my t-shirt....and so far I am in the lead in my age category.  (and tell me how 36-45 is a fair age category for those of us skirting the top edges of it????). That ride killed my quads though....I couldn't run the next day and did a pathetic, low effort recovery ride instead.  Saturday was better.  Thing 1 had me run 8 miles at race pace.  I felt reasonably good with a 10:24 pace.

Yesterday I took Thing 1 to Cornell for the last open meet of the indoor track season.  He FINALLY went under 5 for the 1600 on the indoor track!!!!! 4:59.8   Yay! He's run faster on the outdoor track but the indoor one has been a frustrating struggle.  He was pretty happy.  I was the Mum on the track screaming splits at him...hey, he asked me to do it...he didn't say I couldn't enjoy it! After his race he helped out with the young kids in the local track club so I went for a run on campus.  I honestly don't know how XLMIC ran on this campus all the time! It was SOOOOOOO boring....and good Lord, so hilly.  So painfully hilly.  I'm pretty sure I ran uphill the whole 5 miles regardless of what direction I turned.

I am a little worried about my long run this week.  14 miles.  I hope I have it in me & that the weather is reasonable.

It's been a rollercoaster couple of weeks.  But I guess that's just running.

Oh & today I pulled the trigger & registered for the Dunkirk Tri: Olympic Distance August 25th!!!!  Yikes!


7 comments:

Kate Geisen said...

Congrats to Thing 1! Seriously impressive!!

And those mile repeats with only a minute in between? I'd die. Even 800s with 400 jogs make me want to die. When I do 1600s it's always with a half mile recovery jog. You're tough!

And maybe your body just needed a little breather. You're going to be killing it again soon, just wait.

The Unexpected Runner said...

Thanks Kate! I hope so!

Suz and Allan said...

Congrats to Thing 1 and congrats to you for killing it on the bike at the gym!

Ransick said...

Sub 5 for a 1600 is crazy fast! That is awesome!

I'm with Kate on the maybe your body needed a little rest theory. You'll be back on track soon. Keep listening to your body though and take extra rest when you need it to avoid injury.

Congrats on the Top Dog t-shirt! That is also awesome.

Coy Martinez said...

No worries, we all have those crappy runs where you just can't hit where you need to and wonder why in THE HELL it was so much easier just a week earlier HAHAHA! :) It's just a crappy feeling. Still though, you're getting it done!

Will this be your first Olympic tri!? We need a bike picture!!

TriMOEngr said...

You are a rock star in my book. I can't do fast. And wind? EWWW! COLD?? Double EWW!! Way to get the work in and LOL about your puddles of sweat and fitness math. Congrats to the kiddo - always nice to break a previous limit. Hang in there and don't count yourself down and out just yet. Your 14 miles will be fine.

P.S. Thinking about registering for my first Oly on that same day in Aug (Lake St Louis).

Jamie said...

Yay! Dunkirk should be fun, and I've considered doing that race someday.

You're doing great! Some weeks we're just tired.