Sorry to all of my blog readers. I have been a bad blogger. Now that it is Spring Break (Woo hoo!) I have time to bring you up to speed.
Last week's workouts and the highlights:
M: Swim
Dave was back at practice today. (Not P.D... this is a different Dave). He swam in my lane a lot last fall but was out of town just recently. We shall call him Little Dave (L.D) from now on because he is so young. L.D swam in my lane again today. When L.D. is around you must be aware. Why you may ask? Well L.D. often swims down the middle of the lane. You have to keep an eye out on where he is or he may run into you. Luckily, we swim in the end lane and it is a bit wider than most lanes. He didn't run into me today. Thank goodness. I am beginning to think that the C.L. puts him in my lane on purpose just so more people will get in my swimming bubble...
Tues: Rest
It is amazing how glamorous you feel when you get to sleep in until 7:30!!! Wow. I slept 10 hours that night. I can still remember how amazing that felt.
W: Swim
Thurs: Run 1 mile; Bike on trainer for 30 min; Run 2 miles at 10k pace
XXX and I ran the workout. We are a good team. He was the timer and I called out the workouts. I also kept track of what number we were on... good thing or he would have had us doing extra sprints on the bike. :) Lord knows I am not really an over-achiever. I will do what I am told but who wants to do extra and put yourself through MORE pain that could have been avoided. Haha.
Fri: Foam roller
At practice CL asked us how many times we used the Grid this week. (The Grid is the foam roller.) I guess the magic answer was 3. However, I don't think anyone used it that many times. This then led to a conversation about how we need to be spending quality time with our Grid. This led to other conversations that should not occur in a YMCA. :) We were all laughing pretty hard.
Sat: Bike 20 min; Run 20 min (easy workout before tomorrow's race)
I did this on my own. It is crazy how long 40 minutes can take when you don't have anyone to talk to.
Sun: Race Day!
I raced with two of my best buddies... Amber and Becky in the Great Clermont Triathlon. This was in Clermont, FL... land of the Florida mountains. Seriously.
Race Stats:
Great Clermont Triathlon on 3/25/12 Olympic Tri; 1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run
Overall Time: 2:44:48
Swim and T1: 25:57
Bike: 1:24:15 17.7mph
Run and T2: 54:37 8:30/mile pace
CL told me to do the swim easy (focus on getting used to swimming in my wetsuit), bike at a moderate pace, and run as hard as I can.
Overall, the swim felt really good. I didn't feel like I was being suffocated too much in my wetsuit, which was nice. This was my first race wearing a wetsuit.... and i was a tad bit nervous after my last experience at Lucky's where I about had a panic attack. I tried to go easy on the swim and do more pulling and less kicking. I also had my first experience with a wetsuit stripper. (Wetsuit strippers are the people who help pull off your wetsuit when you get out of the water.) This was quite interesting. I had no idea what to do. When I saw the man, I ran up to him and just stood there. There was this awkward moment and he just looked at me. I then told him that I didn't know what he wanted me to do. He told me to lay down and then he grabbed my wetsuit and pulled it off. It was more like ripping it off because he had to pull really really hard. The person next to me who was having their wetsuit taken off went really fast... me- nope. Are you supposed to do something to make it come off easier?
Bike: My heart rate was really high (average HR on bike was 168) but I felt like I was going a moderate pace. I could have definitely tried harder so I felt like I was going the "moderate" pace that I should have. 17.7mph average pace according to timing chip. 18.4mph pace according to my gps. I like 18.4mph much better. :) Hopefully the Trek has hopefully made her last maiden voyage on a race course. Not being able to shift in the front because my derailer is broken AND doing the Clermont mountains is basically a recipe for disaster. However, the bike went a lot better than I thought. A couple of times I had to make a turn onto a road just to find myself going straight up. That was a bit much. I had to stand up a couple of times... but so was everyone around me... so I was in good company.
Run: I tried to focus on high cadence, small steps... A LOT!! I thought of the CL yelling this at me at least 3 out of the 6 miles. LOL. Every time I wanted to walk, I just slowed my pace down and made my cadence higher. When I slowed down I noticed on my gps I would go from a 8:00/mile to 9:00/mile pace.... which for me is still really fast for this distance. But then when I increased my cadence, I found myself running faster with less effort. I am beginning to think that the high cadence is a mental thing where you think you are running slower but you are really using less effort to run faster. Towards the end of the run it got really hot and my legs (quad's) started cramping a little. They didn't lock up completely, but I could feel them start to lock up then loosen up enough to let me keep moving. Avg HR on the run was 182. I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest on the 2nd half of the run where my HR was up in the 190's.
Overall, I can tell that I am getting stronger. I have never run that fast on an olympic.... and even some sprints.
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