Yes I am still training, that would be why my rump hurts this morning. Yesterday I ran hills with my husband and one of my Marathon Team Training coaches, Shawn. He said he had a killer hill near where we live, he wasn't kidding. It made the one we ran up and down at the Grove like a bunch of undecided salmon seem positively tame. It is brutal, .2 miles of sheer, unadulterated steepness, that only gets steeper the last 50-75 feet at a time when your quads, hams and glutes are begging to stop, asking that you might take a break. When I say I almost barfed the last three repeats after that last little bit of distance, I am not kidding. Shawn teased me and said that would be reason enough for him to run the hills.
I don't know what I am hoping to accomplish by running these hills, get faster? I guess that's why my husband entered us in to the Cul-De-Sac 5K series. Two weeks ago we ran our first, I was a bit slow at the start because it was a mass start and I was in the back of the pack, but I finished in 27 minutes, 13 seconds. I made up time, and finished where I usually do for a 5k. The following week we ran the same route. I started more up front, but right before the start these old people got in front of me. Once again, I had to pick through to get to a spot where I could run without a bunch of people in front of me. I had to make up time. I kept checking my Garmin and I was running sub 9 minute miles the whole way which is good for me. I wound up running the 5k in 26 minutes and change, the seconds escape me, but I was 44seconds faster. Did I mention it was over 90 degrees while we were running and I felt like barfing? But it was my first triumph this particularly dismal race season for me. The first thing I did right I felt. I have never run a sub 27 minute 5K before.
If you remember my last pity post, I was bemoaning my swimming, if that's what you can call it. When I brought my girls to Tri team the Monday following my disaster in the James, their coach, Michael asked how I did. I was honest, told him how awful my swim was and he offered up he had an open water swim class at 6 in the morning on Wednesdays. I told Brad about it figuring nothing more would come of it, but where was I, 6am, two days later? That's right, poised on the bank of the James River, ready to jump in and swim for an hour. We signed up for a month worth of that torture. This past week was particularly good for me. I found my stroke, I was rotating at my hips, reaching long boat style, good form. During my 400M warm up I had a facial encounter with a fish. It swam right by my goggles and scared the crap out of me. The warm up was 400meters followed by a ladder workout. You kept increasing your pace until you were almost at race pace at the end.
We focused on speed and on not putting our feet down to recover. We had to tread water, boo! So we started with 50m repeats. Swim as hard as we could to the blue buoy. Our coach was waiting there in his kayak. Stop, recover for 30 seconds and do it again, we did that four times. Then we switched to 100m repeats. 4 of those, same as the 50's. You go down on the right side of the buoys, back to the left to avoid swimming head on into someone. Everyone wears brightly colored swim caps too, to avoid the head on thing as well. I was feeling great, I had started in group two, we were broken up into two groups according to speed, and wound up getting myself thrown in with group one I was swimming so well for my group. I was pleased, not too shabby I was thinking smugly to myself. I was on top of the world, then blam! I swam head on into something that grabbed me by my shoulders screaming, Are you okay? Are you okay? Some guy, without a swim cap, swimming out on the wrong side of the buoy totally punched me in the face while he was stroking. Now I know why I avoid bar room brawls. Getting punched in the face hurts like heck! My goggles jammed into my eye socket and I have a delightful bruise on my cheek, at least I don't have another black eye, ala trail running while training for the Bear Creek 10 miler... I finished up the work out, the water feeling good where my face was starting to swell. You know, I don't even do anything wrong, I had on my swim cap, I was siting properly, I was on the correct side of the buoy and I wind up getting hurt, why? Enough of that, I now return you to my regular blog....
The not putting your feet down to catch your breath, and resting like that was killer. But I did learn to tread water more efficiently. After our 100's we did
150's hooray!! Holy cow, I was spent. I was never more glad to hear our hour was up and it was time for us to do a cool down. I did 100m easy one. Switching strokes and really taking it easy. I couldn't wait to get out of the river and see my face, which, incidentally wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The bruise is a pale brown and easily missed. But I felt pretty good about how I swam, so there's something.
I have been carrying on with my Wednesday night rides too. I did 22 this week as opposed to 25, the getting up at 4:45 to get to the swim on time, followed by a run while the girls are at tri team swim and doing the 25 mile ride that night takes some getting used to. A spread out tri through out the day. It's not the exertion as much as it's the early wake up!
So I have the Three Sport tri this weekend. A chance to redeem myself from my performance at the Shady Grove tri, same course, different sponsor, and the NYC Tri the next weekend. I am hoping to do way better there then I did last year. Last year, my bike was having gear issues, this year, Bonni is a happy girl!
I definitely have to blog about my favorite run of the year.It is coming up two days before the NYC Tri, the Underwear Run, where we will be going for a worlds record for number of people running in their skivvies! Look for the Pink Panther and Inspector Clousseau to make an appearance!
