Weekend workouts

I realize that it probably seems like I haven't worked out since my race. I promise that I'm not sitting around getting lazy. OK, I might have done that for at least a full week after the race but I'm back into the swing of things. Up until this weekend though, my workouts were a little willy nilly and random. Redundant much?

On Saturday I went out for my first actual RUN since the race. I went out for what I assumed would be a tough 3 miles. I honestly expected my first post-race run to be stiff and awkward. Instead I surprised myself by running my fastest 3 miles since August! I actually think it was faster because I had to stop for traffic twice and I forgot to pause the Garmin. I ran a Virtual 3 miler last year at 35:07. Saturday's 3 miler was 35:18 but that included two stops. Hello 11:46 pace! (Remember my 1/2 marathon goal was to hang out around 12:45.) This run definitely got my wheels turning but that's another post.
It was snowing lightly when I left the house for my run so I decided to leave the iPod at home. I love how quiet the snow makes everything. It's like everything is on mute. By the time I actually got to the trail, it felt like I was running inside a snow globe. The snow was coming down pretty hard. It wasn't so bad on the way out but coming back, the snow was blowing right in my face. As for the snow making everything quiet? Not so much on Saturday. There are some high voltage power lines that run parallel to the trail....and with the snow hitting them, they were BUZZING. I was wishing I had my iPod to drown out the buzzing but oh well. It occupied my brain as I was always wondering if I was going to get electrocuted. Fun times!
Next up was a TNT group practice. Our spring/summer teams just got started and this was our 3rd official practice. I love seeing all the new faces but also the alumni who have come back for more! I'm coaching the race walkers for the 6th year in a row and I love it. It's fun seeing the nervous and excited faces at these first couple of trainings. Soon enough those faces will turn to determination and sometimes angst as they look at me, their coach, with daggers, wondering why on earth they are putting their bodies through this. But then on race day, I get to see faces of sheer joy when they cross the finish line of something they never thought possible!

After doings lots of small circles to try to spend a little time with each walker (all at different paces), I ended my morning just shy of 4 miles. The Garmin recorded 3.48 but it might have helped if I had remembered to start my watch when we actually got started. Oh well. The Garmin pace graph amused me. You can tell when I would run ahead to catch a faster person or stop to drop back from someone slower. The result is this crazy looking thing:
I had bargained with myself before the group training that if I didn't get my heart rate up for at least 30 consecutive minutes, then I would need to get in another workout. As you can tell by the stops and starts above. I didn't get in my 30 minute elevated heart rate. My heart rate just doesn't get up there when I'm walking a 25 minute mile.

So it was off the pool in the evening. Normally the pool is pretty dead on Sunday evening with the exception of a little kid swim lesson but all of the lanes were full when I got there just before 6 pm. I stalked stood at the end of the lane and waited. It became apparent that no one was leaving anytime soon and I didn't want to hang out at the pool all night. Darn it, I would have to get friendly. I finally asked someone if I could share his lane. He was very nice and split the lane with me. He was mostly doing a slow breast stroke though, which just takes up more space. I told myself that it was good for me to get use to having someone in my space. It's good triathlon practice to not be disturbed by other people up in your grill.

I did a ladder work out (50, 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50) with a 100 warm up and 100 cool down. 1000 yards in roughly 35 minutes. I tried to keep my rests to 30 seconds in between each set. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn't.

Sometimes I raced the guy in the lane with me. Sometimes I didn't. I'm a slower swimmer (nothing new there) so when you are as slow as me and find yourself able to pass someone else, it's exciting. I do have some competitiveness buried in me pretty deep and I know I pushed myself on a couple of those sets just so I could lap the guy (once I realized he had switched to freestyle). Those competitive sets were when I needed a little more than 30 seconds to recover. Go figure.

So that was my weekend workout round up. What were you up to this weekend?