Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Sushi Fueled!

I've had to move a few workouts around this week thanks to a few commitments, so that meant getting a run in today over lunch. I had a 64 minute run with 3 x 10:00 steady state intervals. I didn't double check that I had the right workout in my Garmin last night, so once I finally caught a signal and checked things out...oops! The steady state run I had in the Garmin was based on heart rate zones and was probably a 2 hour run. Nothing a few beeps of a button couldn't fix.

I started out on my 20 minute warm up and was feeling good until about 15 minutes in. All of a sudden my legs were tired!! They came around in time for the first interval and then I never had to worry about my pace for the rest of the run. It felt amazing! I wound up with 6.62 mi in 65 minutes.

I met a girlfriend for dinner at my favorite sushi joint, Globefish. We had some amazing sushi and I felt sufficiently fueled for the next task for the day - swimming!

Since my first open water swim race in Oliver is coming up way before any lakes in Calgary are warm enough to swim in I asked Angie and Richelle for a few tips. They normally swim at 9 pm so I headed off to their pool for their workout. Purely by coincidence I was also wearing my sushi suit - so I was sushi fueled, inside and out!! Richelle was in charge for the swim and I got in a lane with three other ladies from my team and got ready to go. We ran through a warm up, then moved into a 500m time trial. The only real 500m time I have to compare to was my swim at the Strathmore Women's Triathlon - 13:51. I figured I'd be a bit faster, maybe around the 11:00 mark or so. I pushed off first and I had a few goals in mind:
  • To swim strong and confident, and to keep my breathing under control.
  • To not get passed.
  • To pass someone if at all possible.
Mission accomplished on all three fronts! I felt so smooth and comfortable on the swim. I was swimming strong and not flailing about and getting myself out of breath. I touched the wall in 10:20 which was definitely better than I was expecting. That is more than a 3 minute improvement on 500m! Woo hoo!!!

From there we moved into some sighting drills like doing a heads up front crawl, or a front crawl with alligator eyes. I'm not sure I'd want to spend too much time doing a heads up front crawl as you have to kick extra hard to combat your sinking legs and it gets pretty tiring. Not to mention you can swallow mouthfuls of water. After that Richelle took the lanes down and we covered deep water starts, which is especially key since Lake Stevens is a deep water start off of a dock. After that we talked about how to execute turns around a buoy. It went so much better today than the last time I tried this and I feel a lot more comfortable with this skill now! All in all a great swim - thanks Richelle! I'm thinking the sushi may have been a good boost as well!!
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No doubt you have all heard of the Running Superfans by now. These guys are hilarious!! There are all kinds of great videos to check out to see what lengths these guys will go to in order to inspire others to run right here. This one is by far my favourite though:

Carl and Karl Underwood love running.

They love marathons, half-marathons, and half-half-marathons. They love 5Ks, 10ks, and think 401Ks sound pretty fun. They think cross-country, steeplechase, and the first 90% of pole vaulting aren’t too bad, either.

The Underwood brothers are Running’s #1 Superfans and their mission is to share their love of running with the world.

16 comments:

Missy said...

Fish to fuel the fish! Nice work. Sounds like you go in some great open water swim drills.

While you don't want to cross your arms in front of you swimming (keep em wide), in open water, you'll want to keep one a little closer to protect your face, until you're ready to protect your face with your other hand/arm. Hope that makes sense - you want to feel feet on your hands not on your face:)

Keith said...

I nearly spat out my coffee at the video. I'm TOTALLY into that. And congrats on the swim time trial result! Globefish is mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Deb said...

Globefish is my absolute favorite sushi place too!!! Ohhh I haven't been there in a while, might be time to go!

Well done on the swim workout, superstar!!

Marlene said...

Ohmigosh, I'm laughing my butt off at that video because I was (unintentionally) chasing an ice cream truck on my Tuesday evening run.

Great swim workout and awesome improvement on your 500!

Molly said...

Wow, great job on the swim PR! Totally jealous!!!

Wes said...

Don't you just love being able to program your workouts into the Garmin? I can't wait to get my 310XT.

I {heart} sushi! It is the perfect pre-swim fishee type fuel :-)

Bob Almighty said...

Dang girl pretty soon your going to be pulling splits like mine :)

On the running superfans...I assume they also have t-shirts that state "If running were easy it'd be called:
Football
Soccer: well ok soccer is a 5 mile erratic tempo run.
Baseball
Basketball...

Marcy said...

Wow! CONGRATS!! You rocked out on that swim and total bonus for being 3 out 3. Whoot!

Rainmaker said...

Such.so.good. :)

Nicely done on the HR run - keeping a steady HR over the course of the run is exactly what you want.

Run For Life said...

Love the sushi/sushi fuel! Great job on the swim. :)

I hadn't seen that particular RSF video before, thanks for the laugh!

Marit C-L said...

GREAT job with the swim - that's awesome!!! And I LOVE myself some good sushi...yum yum yum! I think we found your secret weapon.

Totally agree with the sighting thing in triathlon - hard because the legs always sink. I should probably practice more...

Cute video - hee hee hee!

Brooke said...

oooh sushi. it is at the top of the list of things I totally crave. I hate you! now I want sushi! :)

Lily on the Road said...

You're kicking some serious butt there ~ awesome.

Oh, I just checked out Globefish, wow!!!

Lindsay said...

that video is awesome. :) gotta burn it to earn it! let me tattoo that on my hand and fridge! haha.

ok your swimming comments make me more scared of a tri! lol. i'm sure all the drills will help make it more comfortable though. congrats on the speedy 500m!

Judi said...

good job on the swim!! obviously you have been working hard!

Sonia said...

These videos are hilarious!! Thanks for the chuckle!!

You're improving in all 3 sports, I sense you'll have a really GREAT half IM =)