Tuesday, March 11, 2014

1k under 4 minutes

I am not sure what it says about how things are going if I'm excited about running one 1k repeat in 3:56. It probably means I need to put my sh*t together and do something about my running fitness (stop running intervals by feel, start using your watch!!!). But I can't help it. I am pretty stocked about that <4 min:-="" nbsp="" p="">
Actually I ran 3 of them (after an easy 5mile warm up, for 8.5miles total run). They were 4:04, then I decided that the wind was too strong so I changed the start so I ran the tailwind stretch 3 times and headwind stretch only 2 times, 4:00, 3:56. And I jogged/walked 800-1000m in between so my rest was like 7-8min.
My legs hurt already after 800 m of the 1st interval. I could still feel my right hip flexor little bit as I opened my stride, but most of the pain was just not being used to faster running and the permanent tired state my legs are in. I guess that's what 70.3 training does to you.

I don't remember the last time I ran fast intervals. I think that it was couple months ago (I tried last Friday but that didn't work out very well so I'm obviously not counting that). Let me brainstorm: I trained for BSL all last spring with long intervals at HM pace, then my training went downhill when I was working 80-90h weeks all summer and all I could master were 1h easy runs at 4am before the daily hell started, then after Vegas I had enough and spent the fall eating peanut butter out of the jar using chocolate bars as a spoon. So really I have no idea when I did something fast but it was a long time ago.

So eventough it was slow by my standards and it hurt more than I would have liked, it still felt awesome because we all know how much I love track workouts. I wish I could do only those!
Oh yeah, and it was like 70 degrees and I was in shorts and sports bra! I'm solar powered. (Unless it is 100 degrees because my 6 feet and 140 pounds body doesn't deal that well with that.)

I just got a confirmation yesterday that I can race AG ITU Olympic distance World Championship in Edmonton at the end of August, so once I'm done with my Mallorca vacation I am hopefull that I will do more of these faster efforts:-)

Sunday, March 9, 2014

7 days later

and I am still sore from that spin bike ride I did as part of the indoor tri. Can you believe that?
I tried to open my stride during a 1k repeats workout on Friday but it hurt too much and I was worried that I might tear something in the psoas/grouch/hip flexors/inner thighs area.
Although I must say that today it feels much better than on Friday so hopefully my poor legs will be fully recovered by Tuesday.

On a different note. I finally bought my plane ticket to Mallorca (doing Mallorca 70.3 on May 10). My sister, mom, cousin and grandfather are coming too. We arrive Thursday, I race Saturday and then we stay exploring the island until Tuesday, and then I go to Slovakia to visit the rest of the fam until Sunday. So it is really not my "A" race, more like a vacation. And let me say that if Andreas Raelert doesn't race I would be really mad because he was the number one item on my "why do Mallorca race" list.

I checked the participant list and there is 113 women in my AG. Interesting. Could be worse, there is over 400 men in 30-34... Around 3000 athletes total. Yeah, everybody (meaning German and British speedsters) is going to be there. Highly popular race. With 1 slot to Mt Tremblant for each women's AG... Good thing I am not after any slots. But one day I will be back to win that race!!!:-)

Since I'm doing the race for fun (at least as much fun as one can have doing a HIM) I am not bringing my bike. Too much hassle. Mallorca is a very popular training spot so there are tons of bike shops offering bike rentals.  So I figured I can just rent a bike. But 5 hours and multiple emails later I found ONE tri bike for rent on the whole island....OK, I found 3 - but one is unavailable, the second one is too small, so that left me with one, which was labeled as testing bike. I reserved it but haven't received any confirmation so who knows what the deal is.
If worse come to worse I will race on a road bike. It is for fun anyway, right? ( just remind me about this when I'm super pissed about everyone kicking my butt on a bike portion after the race). And there is a 13mile climb in the middle of the bike so maybe I will be OK.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Indoor triathlon RR

You would be surprised what a supposedly short and sweet triathlon could do to you...I can't lift my legs and am likely skipping all the workouts planned for today just to recover from this 45 min long triathlon. I spent a few minutes at 2am on a foam roller today trying to limit the damage. True story.

I figured that swimming 10 min in a pool, riding 20 min on stationary bike and running 15 min on an indoor track would be a nice change from sitting on my trainer for 3-4h every weekend.

Swim was great, we were in multiple waves so each participant had her own lane. I swam exactly 700yards in 10 min. That's is around 1:25 pace and it didn't even felt hard. (I probably shouldn't admit that I didn't go as hard as I should have but just trying to be honest)
I swam around 14:45 for 1000 yards a few weeks ago and it definite was harder than yesterday's effort. It either means that my swimming is coming along nicely or it proves my theory that the pool I swim in is slow. Seriously, I went to visit my sis for the past two Xmases and I swam in pool there and both times when I got back to my pool I was like whoa, do they pour oil into this thing????

Then you had 10 min to transition. I changed to my tri shorts, drank water, chatted with a few people....

Bike is what has caused my very achy legs. You see, they had those spinning bikes and the way they function is the faster you spin the further you go. Therefore that was a torture for someone like me who usually bikes at low 80s cadence....So I spinned and spinned and spinned my brain out and my hip flexors got tighter and tighter and tighter.
You can totally tell who spends their free time in spin classes. We were all smoked by this 45years old lady. Next year I doing some spin classes with her if I'm doing this race again.
So I got off the bike and holy shi*!!!, my hip flexors! And they got only worse from there, not I can't lift either of my legs without using my arms to pull my leg up (how is that for explanation?). And those muscles behing the knees aren't thrilled with me either. I seriously think that if I try to bike today I'm going to injure myself.

Then another 10min transition that I spent...correct, stretching my hip flexors.

Run was alright. I started well, then it got harder, I was able to hold the pace for a little while but then I slowed down. I ran 3 600 m, which is 4:10 pace I believe. Hm, thinking of that, not too bad.

And that was it. 45min of SBR, 20min transitions, pure fun.