Monday, June 22, 2009

Working on my power output

Wow, I did not accomplish nearly enough tonight.  I had meant to fix the flat tire on the front of my bike (the first time the front has flatted in the 14+ months that I have owned it).  I probably also really needed to finish up the laundry I started yesterday.  Instead I got home on the later side of things, got sucked into Jon & Kate (I know, I know…terrible, I’m sorry), and fell asleep during the rose ceremony of The Bachelorette.  Anyhow, time to catch up, right?

Last week was my final big week of workouts before Great White North, and Sunday’s workouts started off with a bang and finished with a whimper.  My long run was accomplished on Thursday, so that left me with one last good quality run and swim to finish out the week.

I had a run with 10 x 2:00 hard intervals.  We are talking zone 4, all out effort, "these should hurt really bad" intervals.  The day after riding 120K.  No problem!  I started off with a nice and easy warm up for 10 min, then did 4 x 0:20 accelerations followed by :40 of easy running.  Then it was time for the work to begin!Running Downtown Calgary 21-06-2009, Pace 2
I tried to not look at my watch the entire time, but I’m really happy that my intervals were so consistent for pace.  They ranged from 7:51/mi to 8:23/mi.  I did a cool down jog for 10 min afterwards and finished up feeling really good about my run.

Afterwards I headed into the Y downtown to knock out my swim workout.  It was a 2000m race distance swim, followed by 4-6 x 100m sprints and a 200m cool down.  There was no warm up, just start right in on the 2000m.  To keep things a bit easier I broke the swim up into 500m chunks and timed each segment.  Holy smokes, was I swimming slowly…  I finished up the 2000m in a whopping 51:43.  Ridiculous.  It was more than 5 minutes slower than I think I should have been.  I really wasn't feeling the sprints after that and I called it a day.

My motivation has really been flagging when it comes to the swim lately.  And as luck would have it, I had another swim on the schedule today.  My swim classes are over for the summer and I'd like to try swimming downtown more often, so Monday and Wednesday afternoons seem to work best for that.  I was headed to the Y and I passed a couple of pubs and thought that those sounded like much more fun than going to swim.  But I was good and bypassed those and got my behind to the pool!

I had an interesting workout on the schedule.  It was an endurance set with ascending effort and it was written in terms I could totally understand:
- 300m at a steady effort (75%)
- 200m at a harder effort (85%)
- 100m HARD! (95%)
Put things in terms of mathematical percentages and all of a sudden things make sense in the water.  I realized as I finished up my warm up and tried to dial into my 75% effort that yesterday I swam my entire 2000m at a warm up pace.  I never worked up the motivation to go faster.  I had it in me, I just didn't tap into it.  When I tried to increase the effort today I made sure to keep good form in mind so that I was still feeling efficient in the water, I was just working harder and I succeeded.  I ran through the set twice, and including warm up and cool down I knocked out 2000m.  When I went home and worked out the numbers I successfully increased my pace as my effort increased, and I successfully repeated those same paces during both intervals.  Nice!  Sometimes I guess I just need to see things from a more mathematical perspective!

10 comments:

Mel-2nd Chances said...

Nice intervals and swimming! You're inspiring me :) You'll do so well for your half IM!

Lauren said...

John and Kate plus the Bachelorette. Nice evening.

Sometimes it's hard to come up with the motivation (especially after that bike and run combo). Good job on getting back in the grove. Less than 2 weeks till Race Day!

Wes said...

It's hard to get motivated for long swims the week before the race. Don't worry about it too much. Your goal on the swim is to find a comfortably hard pace and run with it. You are going to have a blast!!

Marlene said...

Awesome job on your your interval run - sounds like a tough workout.

Good job redeeming yourself at the pool yesterday, too.

Meg said...

You are KILLING things! (in a good way!) Holy smokes girl, you're awesome! I'm getting excited for you!

Those pubs will still be there when you cross the finish line...I bet they'll even give you a free beer if you tell them how much they tempted you during your training!

Lindsay said...

ahh tlc. always sucking you in to one of their shows. happened to me the other night... "mermaid girl".

nice job on the swims! umm your 2000 might have been "slow" but i wouldn't have even made it that far. still sounds like a good workout to me even though you cut it short.

Charisa said...

Nice workouts!! You are going to do well in your race :)

Aron said...

awesome job on the workouts girl!

Ali said...

I had the same evening last night, jon and kate then the bachelorette.

Great job on the intervals. I might try that swim workout next time I actually make it to the pool!

teacherwoman said...

Wow. You are so rockin' your workouts! Keep it up, Leana!