Skip to main content

Interval Tuesday!!!!!

There's no more playing around here. Time to get into serious training mode. Disney 70.3 is in 19 days and it's all about breaking 5 hours. Good eating, enough sleep, no stress after wed..I must focus on this race. Well, in addition to the 50-million other things I am doing to keep me busy, I'm really amazed of how well I have improved with my training since Kona. Actually, I'm mostly impressed on how I actually healed myself and kept sane while I was painfully walking, slowly running at 6.4mph and then somewhat biking from November until January. But....all is good and here we go. Time for interval Tuesday!
4:43am time to get up. Coffee, check email, out the door.
5:30am in the water. With a final last night (100% on my global marketing final...wahoo!! Those grades don't come in my biology class, unfortunately :( ) and no finals today (2 tomorrow) I decided to join my early morning swimmers at the Palm Harbor Y. About 20 or so people and wow, did i miss swimming with everyone. I gave up the early morning swims on tues/thurs (changed them to mon, tues, fri around 7am) because I was too tired from my mon and wed night classes. I was so happy to be in the water and I pushed it hard this morning. One of my best sets...and oh, my lats!
SWIM 5:30-6:30
10x100 warm-up w/ 15 sec rest
5 x 100 kick on 1:30 w/ fins (I didn't have fins, so 10-beat kick for me and I didn't make a cycle, so I just kicked until everyone was finished)
Main set: 10 x 100 on 1:30 for me and Dave (who I swam with in a lane). I was rocking the 100's at 1:19 for the first 5 and then I got the Ironman boost and pulled out 1:16's for the last 5.
Last set: 4 x 50's on :50. All-out!
Warm-down and it totaled 2900.
Time for the treadmill....
6:50am - Interval run
10 min warm-up at 7.3 mph
Main set: 8 x 4 min at 8.5 mph (7:03 min mile) w/ 1 min recovery jog at 7.8 mph
Warm-down 5-8 minutes (walk/jog)
Total:7.8 miles
WOOOOWWWW...this set got me. I forgot to mention that Mon. morning I trained since I didn't do a real workout on sun. I ran 10 miles and biked 20 and told myself if I tried to run on tues and I started to ache, then I would not risk hurting myself for an interval workout. Well, all was good and my legs felt fine but it was a tough workout. Each 4 minute interval came to about .6 miles and after the first 4 I had to convince myself to keep going. I had my friend Tony running next to me and he said he would do the last 4 with me. Even at his 7.5 mph pace, it was great to "run" with someone. We kept each other going with encouraging words and I happily gave the reminder "1 minute to go..we can do it!" When I'm tired during a race, I like to tell myself I can rest when the race is over, but I am the one who decides when the race is over. Therefore, I must keep going if I can mentally convince myself that i can take it. I felt the pace was good, not too fast and believe me, not too slow!!! It was just right that I felt a burn but I wasn't crossing the lactate threshold. Therefore, I knew I could clear lactate in the rest period and produce enough during the set to handle it. At that length of interval, pushing too hard over a threshold is very depleting and if I didn't properly pace myself I wouldn't make it to 8. And lastly, I knew this set was hard when after the 3rd interval I find myself looking down at the treadmill clock when my body starts to hurt. In a 1 or 2 minute interval, 15-30 seconds more isn't a problem. But when you look at the clock when you hurt, it is oh so hard to know you have 2 1/2 more minutes!!! Yes, I looked every time at 2:30 into my interval....but I kept my form and just saw myself at the Disney finish line.
Well, there we are...another interval Tuesday. Only a few more weeks left to go ....