Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Surprise (although that's what you get with settling for low expectations)

My ITB has not miraculously healed itself. Although it has surprisingly "re-injured" itself on Saturday...Why does not it work the other way as well?
It feels much better than 3 days ago but nowhere close to what it fell just a week ago:(

I have not done any workouts or anything training related since Saturday. I had ZERO desire to exercise, I just ate cookies and cheesecake (I am not exaggerating, I really did) and spent my days interviewing for jobs. I got one job offer but I think I will decline that one. I have one interview tomorrow as well. Keep your fingers crossed, that job would be awesome!

Today I started to feel that I should do something. I wanted to run, but well, I could not do that, could I? So I had to settle for bike and swim:) Just kidding, I love biking and swimming!

I was supposed to do bike hill repeats but I had to do them inside because this is Midwest and there are no 6 min hills. There is only one hill where I can do 3 min repeats...
I decided to do them on trainer and it was scary to do standing climbs on trainer. I was waiting for a moment when I fly off, crack my skull on a kitchen counter and nobody will find me for days. Fortunately, that did not happen. But I think that I will not do it again. I got my HR to over 170 but I do not think that I have worked hard enough muscularly. Stationary bike would be better for climbs I think.

Then I tricked myself into a swim. I was supposed to do this swim on Monday. But it looked very very hard and I was trying to postpone it...bad bad mmmonyka!
I was hard, really, at least for me. Main set was 4x400 in 6:25, 6:20, 6:15, <6:10 with 1min rest. I went into the workout with a very bad attitude: I basically gave up even before I tried it because I have been feeling pretty bad in water lately and I was not confident at all about my ability to do this swim.
But I kind of surprised myself! Well, I did not make the last interval but I worked hard, pushed myself and tried. Immediately after I got into water I forgot about my bad attitude and just pushed it. Maybe my initial attitude was a good thing because it helped me to lift the pressure of myself. I tend to put myself under a lot of pressure when it comes to swimming and then I dread swim workouts.
I did not know very well how to pace myself so I was off on those intervals.I always started way too fast (1:30pace) and then tried to slow down, but I slowed down too much so then had to push it hard to make up for lost time. It was a mess for the most part.
I kept checking my splits every 100 yards. I know that I was loosing time by lifting my head and looking at the pace clock on a wall, but I had no sense of pace so I had to do it:(
1st: 6:19
2nd: 6:15
3rd: 6:13
4th: 6:11 I tried, I really did, but I kind of slacked on the 3rd 100 and then could not make up the lost time in the last 100.
I wish I could take more rest, I am sure I would have hit it on time with 30 extra seconds. I was this (holding my thumb and index finger half an inch apart) close to taking 1min30sec rest before the last one but then I told myself that that would be cheating so I did not.
The last 150yards hurt (both arms and legs) and it felt great!I think that this pushing myself will be great for my running. Since I cannot run I might forget how hurt feels but pushing myself on bike and swims helps me not to forget.

I did not make the last interval but I am still pleased with myself. I did other intervals faster than I was supposed to and I did better than I thought I would- although that's nothing to be proud of since I had very low expectations initially.

1 comment:

  1. Booo why couldn't your ITB heal itself??? Nice job on the swim though.

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