What makes a “good day”

What makes a “good day”? A “good day” being one where you feel great from the moment you wake up. The kind of feeling you hope to get for race day.

Well here it is not even 9AM and I already feel like today is a good day. Which is odd because I probably only slept 5 hours. Our masters swimming class finishes at 9:45 Wednesday night. I find it difficult to fall asleep right away after that. Then I had the alarm set to 4:40AM so that I could be at the track at 5:30 this morning. I figured that this morning’s track workout would feel awful. Instead, I got the opposite. I didn’t have to spend much time stretching out. I felt awake and ready to go. It was very odd. You are supposed to keep track of how you feel so that you can recreate that situation for race week. I’m not sure that this wasn’t just a fluke.

On the drive to the track to meet Todd and Maija, we notice a bunch of cars parked near a popular fishing hole. I was just about to say to Genine, “Those guys are crazy, to get up and already be fishing by 5AM.” Then I realized that they could say the same about us, getting up to run on an oval when it’s 40 degrees out at 5:30 in the morning. Which goes to show, if you enjoy it enough, you will make time for it.
(Yes you read right, Genine was able to run track with us this morning because she is working at the Bloomingdales near our house today, rather than the one 50 miles away)

I’ve made a point of checking out the McMillan pace charts so that as I start ramping up the run volume, I actually run the proper pace. I’ll also check my HR as a reference as well. This morning’s track workout was going to be long warm up with some strides, 1600, 400 easy, 800, 400 easy, 400 then cool down.

The chart has me running the 1600 in 6:55.9 to 7:11.9. I ran a 6:40.
The chart has me running the 800 in 3:14.3 to 3:23.2. I ran a 3:15.
The chart has me running the 400 in 1:35.2 to 1:39.3. I ran a 1:27.

Total mileage 5-5.5 miles. I’ve gotta get my polar watch memory cleared and ready to keep track of this stuff.

The good news is my feet felt really good this morning. I think running hills Tuesday morning was tough on my right foot. Or maybe it’s getting better.

Genine didn’t mention in her post, the 50m race with fins at masters swimming last night. She beat both Shaun and I by a few feet. She definitely finds another gear when she knows it’s going to be a short effort. Which is awesome. She also loves her fins.

The other awesome event last night was another swimmer that has only been swimming with us for a few weeks. He’s just starting out and has plenty of technique work ahead of him, as we all did when we first started. Anyhow, he’s got his first triathlon in a few weeks and he wanted to get used to his new sleeveless wetsuit. So he wore it to masters last night. He reminded me of how I was a couple years ago, plenty of power but lack of technique. When we got to the sprints I think he may have beaten us to the wall. That would equate to about a 25 second improvement per 100m compared to no wetsuit. That sounds like me a couple years ago.
I left thinking how cool it would be to be 20 seconds faster per 100 once I put my wetsuit on for the race! (yes I realize it was a 50m sprint, just sayin’)