hill repeats

I rode on my road bike for the first time in about a month. It felt good! We got the remnants of Hanna last night so the roads today were covered with tons of broken sticks and leafs and other junk. One side of the road had been flooded and was completely covered with mulch.

I was supposed to do 9 short hill sprints so I headed out to the final big hill on the race course and quickly realized that this was not an appropriate hill for this workout. I zoomed up it once and searched for a better hill. Got to John street and went up it 3 times. By then it was time to head back and finish off the one hour workout.

I felt like crap after the sprints but was able to recover fully within 5-10 mins. Awesome! Good news for the upcoming race!

Oh and two weeks from now it will alllll be over. Kinda sad, but it opens the door for some fun-no-pressure races.

Easy runs for the next two mornings. Funny how running an easy 7 miles over 2 days is going to seem easy....this time last year I couldn't run 3 miles.

long swim

Back in the pool today after sleeping in for the first time since.......i can 't remember!

Did 2050 yards in about 54 mins with breaks. I did a ladder starting with a 50 and going up to a 250 then going back down to a 50, then repeating but only going up to a 200 before going back down to a 50. My arms are SORE!

And whats funny is that I spent more time in the pool this past week than I did on the bike or running. Prolly a good thing since swimming is what I have been lacking on big time.

and an exhausting swim

Tonight's swim went well. I accomplished what I needed to get done, but boy oh boy it was exhausting! I am actually feeling pretty good from this morning's punishment-fest, until I try to walk up some stairs. My body doesn't feel totally wasted, until I move quickly.

So tonight I did 1800 yards in about 50 mins, which included 800 yards of drills. So my overall volume in the pool this year has been low. This is something that I will need to concentrate on more this fall. In fact I am doing a 10 week swim program up @ SUNY with my coach where I will be filmed underwater. Then I will get feedback. Hopefull this will do the trick to get my stroke to where it needs to be.

punishing brick

After yesterday's run my legs were sore, but I didn't think that they were that bad. This morning I learned that my legs are basically a couple of cooked gooses.

Started off on the bike, which felt strong but hurt, for two laps to warmup. On the 3rd and 4th I was supposed to go race pace. The third lap I definately accomplished that, but starting on lap #4 it goes up an inclined hill that isnt steep but will kill you if you go too hard. I spun up it in my easiest gear. For the last half of lap 4 I found my legs again, sorta, and finished as strong as I could.

Now onto the run. It hurt from the beginning to the end. I was supposed to do intervals, but I knew those were out of the question. So what I did was set my watch timer for 3 mins and start off slow and build up to a race pace. Rinse and repeat. It helped. I finished the 5K in exactly 27 mins on the dot. Not bad!

I am actually looking forward to getting back into the pool now that the big pool is open again. I just need to rest my legs. They are spent!

water in the ear

Swam almost 1500 yards last night in 89 degree water! Blah! I got some water in my ear that would not come out, so during my 5.5 mile run this morning I heard a bouncing scratchy echo every time I landed on my right foot.

During the run on the way to the track I went past this small baseball field that had the coolest steam layer coming off of it. I was expecting to see the headless horseman to come riding out of the fog.

On the track, I put in some serious work. 3 x 4 min @ race pace or above intervals. Man those hurt! I felt pretty beat up when I got back home.

Brick tomorrow!

strong ride

I knew on my first lap around SUNY this morning that my legs were feeling stronger than last week. Even on the first 30 second surge I needed a few extra gears to keep from spinning out (an AWESOME feeling, btw!)

Then my legs didn't feel as awesome when I got into the middle of my all out efforts. Fortunately by the time I got into a race pace two lap section of the workout my legs were smooth and I was moving pretty fast.

Good ride. Swim tonight!

finally recovered

last saturday morning's run hurt. I was just beat up and drained at that point. It was only 20 mins!

Family was in town so I took off both Sunday and Monday. I am glad that I took both days off. My blister doesn't hurt while I run (still with moleskin and tape) and legs felt fresher. I felt the rust coming off of my muscles from last week's hurt fest.

I tried to go easy this morning and I did go easy, but I ended up running an 8:50 min/mile pace. Yay me!