after being on the fence about wednesday night's track workout i finally decided to go despite the fact that i HATE to run late in the day especially when i happen to not work on said day and the idea of working out at the end of said day is not so appealing. however, NOT having to be on my feet all day at work NOR having to rush from Kentfield to Pleasant Hill turned out to be prety good reasons NOT to skip it, besides I needed the push myself out of the old comfort zone.
coach seth had us warm-up, one of the other trainers ran us through a few goofy looking drills and then coach seth's evil plan for us was revealed. we were going to do a 2 mile time trial. 2 miles in 20 minutes being the goal. i immediately regretted not having my Garmin, i distinctly recall choosing not to bring it because i was afraid it would appear showy. now faced with a time trial, i wasn't so sure of my pacing skills to pull things off.
we were told to keep track of our laps while coach would call out our times . the 3/4 mile warm-up i did prior apparently did me some good cause i felt loose and connected with my stride. i did my best to keep things slow and even , i really was regretting not having my garmin because i can't recall any of my lap times but with coach calling them out each time i passed i was able to adjust my pace. as i passed a couple of women one of them was nancy, my new mentor and she called out, " you look like a runner!" that felt nice to hear. even after such a long break in consistent training, compared to the other two disciplines i feel more like a runner than a swimmer or cyclists.
i haven't pushed for a sub ten minute mile in a while and by lap 7 i was really working hard to keep focused , my breathing was labored but by no means out of control, my form may have shifted a bit because it was right around that time that my old mentor pulled up and started yacking away about coordinating steps with breathing and how a smile on ones face wouldn't hurt. at which point i flashed him a fakey grin and spewed out something to tune of "yeah, maybe i'll smile when this isn't so hard" he kept yacking away, about form or whatever the hell and well needless to say i found him to be more distracting then helpful and i let know it.
as i passed coach on lap 7, i knew i had a good shot at sub 20 if i cranked it up. i completed
2 miles in 19:25. as i cooled down i was really glad i timed all my eating well that day BECAUSE I ALMOST HURLED. i took a few minutes to compose myself before reporting to another trainer the # of laps and my time. i think not knowing that we were doing time trials probably was an advantage because i tend to have performance anxiety. for someone who normally doesn't like surprises it turned out to be a good thing, . i should also add how NICE DVC's track is, spong-o-liscious.
on saturday, meeting up at Miramonte HS for a swim and a ride. we did a bunch of drills. i have a tendency to lift my head too high during a breath which causes my hips to sink...coach actually called on me to demonstrate this to other swimmers in my group, it was embarrassing but effective because my form was better after that..... and then coach seth surprised us again with another time trial. the goal was 16 laps in 8 minutes.
i completed 10:16 in 8 minutes. slow but with improved form. yay me!
we broke up into 3 groups for the ride, i rode with the intermediate grp. from the school we rode out to canyon through moraga, only 15 minutes out and back but a few good hills to remind me that i need to work on the bike more, as lately i've been focusing on my swim the most.
last night T and i went for a walk and we noticed our brother in-law Neil and a couple of his friends standing outside of T-Rex a local watering hole, one of his friends had a Arizona Ironman T-shirt on, Neil was quick to introduce us and we had a nice chat talking about all the great places to ride in the east bay. we seemed to have the same philosophy, content to be fit enough to play. not fast, no hard-core competition, just happy to participate. awesome!
