3rd post of the day

Those other two were pretty good. Now it's back to the basics.

I ran at the track Tuesday at 5:30AM with Todd. I’m not sure that I would call our workout a track workout. Because of the marathon training we’ve changed the purpose of these track runs. Here’s the deal I’m doing the Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 Marathon Schedule. During the first 6 weeks, Tuesday/Thursday is supposed to be an easy 3-mile run. Todd and I are both of the mind that 3 miles easy is almost not worth the time spent. It’s there for a purpose though and I get that. It’s supposed to add a few easy miles to the week and allow for some recovery. Well I’ll be the first to admit that making the ankles and legs move at 5:30 in the morning isn’t easy. It’s definitely one of those things that make me say, “Yup, I’m old”. So we’ve decided that Tuesday/Thursday is all about getting stretched out. It’s also about trying to defeat that whole “marathon training teaches you how to run slow” thing. Here is an example of our workout.

800-1600 jog. It just depends on how we are feeling.

Stretch

6-8 100m strides. Basically these are sprints but it’s not about pushing so hard to get there fast, it’s about fast cadence/turnover and opening up your stride. It’s a nice break from all the slow marathon training and it definitely lengthens some muscles.

Stretch again if necessary

2-4 400s I’ve been wanting to run these on my 10K pace but so far I’ve ended up pushing too hard/fast. I need to really focus on slowing down to my 10K pace because yesterday afternoon I was definitely feeling like I had run a track workout. As the distances increase on the weekends, I can’t afford to go that hard on my easy days.

After that we just jog and stretch until we run out of time. Usually another 800-1600m

Genine and I finally made it back to the pool Tuesday night. It made me want to go back to Newfound Lake right now!

First reason is that we have to wait until 8:15PM to start swimming.

Second reason, all the lanes were full

Third reason, I didn’t get the memo that freestyle had gone out of style. In 5 of the lanes there was someone doing breaststroke. Not competitively practicing, just kinda enjoying their swim. One person didn’t even have their hair wet and was wearing their glasses.

Fourth reason: The water felt slimy and it’s the warmest I think this pool has ever been. Which made my goggles fog up constantly.

Lastly who would want to swim in a box indoors rather than Newfound Lake?

Oh I almost forgot. Is it a full moon or something? There were some characters there last night. The entire time I was in the shower/locker room there was this guy telling me about his website. This website has all sorts of information about how the Bush administration has cheated America. Of course I just wanted to tell him it’s time to move on, that Bush is out of office but I was too busy trying to get out of the locker room ASAP.

I actually was pleased with my swim workout. Of course I did some swimming with Hand Paddles and fins to get ready for the Tango 2.2 mile swim. It’s definitely an adjustment to get into a good groove with all this extra gear. I just have to remember to slow everything down during the race at the start. Then once I’ve got the timing, open it up and add the power. (Hopefully my arms/shoulders will be ready for this).

I was out running again at 5:30 this morning. I did my 10K loop figuring it was close enough to fill the 6 miles easy requirement. The heel of my left foot was awkward for the first few miles but eventually I didn’t notice it at all.

When I got back to the house I decided I’d weigh myself. I keep forgetting to do this before my run so that I can verify my sweat loss. (It’s an insane number, trust me). It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been on the scale, so it was kind of funny that when I first saw the number I thought I actually gained weight and am right back where I started a month ago. Actually I was down 10 pounds from a month ago and I wasn’t expecting that. Don’t offer up any big congrats on losing 10 pounds. I had just run 6 miles and swam last night. That’s potentially 3-4 pounds of water loss. (I’m not kidding)

That’s all for now, back to the photo editing…