Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hills and Sprints

First things first...yesterday I confirmed what I pretty well already knew. I won't be lining up with thousands of other women at the starting line for the Nike Women's race in October. I'm a little sad since this would have been a chance for me to see my gal pals from San Antonio, Suz and TK, my cousin who lives in Kentucky, and my best friend who recently moved out to San Francisco. But...I have run the race before...and I can always enter again next year.

Anyhow, back to Thursday. There was no swim class scheduled so I opted to sleep in slightly (sleep in being relative since I was up at 5:30 to get to work) and put my swim off until the evening. I also had a hill workout to do, which was perfect for fitting in over lunch. It was about -4C out and a bit windy in places, but the sunshine was terrific. I headed down to the river and warmed up for 15-20 minutes to start my hill repeats at the big hill by the curling club. I had 5 x 2:00 repeats on the schedule. There were a bunch of people out there with the same idea as me and it felt like they were just blowing past me all the time..! I kept my pace steady and strong throughout all the repeats and even managed to improve the pace on them slightly. Just as I finished off my last repeat and was taking off for my cool down run I ran into my teammate Michelle. She had 3:00 hill repeats on her schedule!

I headed off to the Y in the evening and got in the pool around 8:30. Angie gave me a 2200m sprint workout to do. I figured that since it is supposed to be spring break that maybe the pool wouldn't be that crazy. Hmm... I really need to remember to not swim at my Y in the evenings at all..! There were three lanes set up for swimming and I jumped in the medium speed lane. As soon as I got in the water I was feeling really good - so much better and more efficient than Monday! As I moved from the warm up and into my sets the lane got a bit busier and there were about 5 of us in there. I looked over at the fast lane and there was just one other guy swimming so I decided to move over. The only problem with swimming in the fast lane is that this is the lane next to the open area of the pool where the kids are there to hang out, horse around, play with anything that floats and cannonball into the water. No problem with that, but somehow noodles, kick boards, weights, pull buoys all kept ending up in the fast lane. Tough to sprint when you are dodging debris. I pulled it off though and had a really successful swim...so I'm starting to feel like I might be back to my old self!

I have a busy day today, and I really wish I had time to go to the Outdoor Adventure Show. Samantha McGlone is giving a talk entitled "Ironman Training on a Time Budget: How to Train, Race, Work and Still Have a Life." It would definitely be interesting!

12 comments:

Mel-2nd Chances said...

sorry you're not going to Nike, would have been great to see you there :( Have a great weekend -- that talk does sound like it would be interesting!

Meg said...

Booo to Nike.

Judi said...

i cannot cannot cannot stand the kids in the fucking pool next to me. yesterday 2 kids had kickboards that popped into my lane, right in my face. you know what i did? i threw both kick boards right back at those fucking kids. hard.

teacherwoman said...

Sorry to hear about the frustrations at the pool...

Marlene said...

Great job on the hill and swim workouts! Enjoy your weekend!

Rainmaker said...

Noodles in the fast lane? Yikes!

Missy said...

Let me know what her tips were about having a life while Ironman training...unless the life consists solely of s/b/r, wash clothes, pack workout bags, make food, pack a snack, kiss a dog and maybe a husband and then pass out...I got that part down pat;)

Sorry about Nike! Lots of disappointed people right now.

RoadBunner said...

Double Boo to Nike!!

Great swim!

joyRuN said...

Sorry to hear about Nike :(

So far I hadn't gotten bopped by a kid toy in the pool - it's inevitable though, because they usually have 3 lanes for laps & the other 3 for rec.

Aron said...

sorry about nike :( hopefully you will get it next year!!!

great job on the workouts!

ShirleyPerly said...

Extra waves and stuff in the pool is what one of my former tri club coaches used to do to simulate open water swims. He used to also sometimes come up behind us and pull on our legs to throw our rhythm off. Good way to learn focus which will help in a race, I think.

Danielle said...

That's a bummer about Nike. Would've been nice to meet you. I'm excited to get that pendant.