Spring Fever

The summertime warmth and 60 and 70 degree temperatures we've had since Saturday have struck me with a severe case of Spring Fever and have me counting down the days until I head to the BVI to sail the blue waters of the Carribean. But before I go back to my thoughts of fun in the sun and whether I can figure out how to work "outside" this afternoon, here is a quick recap of my recent workouts.

Friday - I decided to pass on scheduling a run lesson (aka speed workouts) for Friday in hopes of having more legs on my Saturday long ride. Instead, I stuck to my plan of a easy recovery run and a hard swim in the pool. 300 warm up 10 x 100 at 1:55 (45 second recovery) and 150 cool down. The consistent swimming and masters class are starting to pay off. After the first 100 I doubted I could finish the workout at the pace (1:50) I was swimming, but somehow, I got through all 10 repeats and suprised myself with times between (1:45 and 1:50). Now if I could only swim that fast for 1900 meters and not feel winded at the end!

Saturday - Bart and I were hosting wine club at our house Saturday night so we headed out for our long ride early. I was determined to have a better ride from the previous week and avenge myself on the same course that caused me such heart ache the week before. This week's ride was LEAPS and BOUNDS better. For the most part, I let Bart lead and I worked on my handling and drafting skills. We rode the Goochland route again averaging around 16.3 mph and I made it up all of the big hills without switching to my granny gear. A big accomplishment, especially on Mount Patterson. My favorite part was the fast stretch of Manakin road on the far side of Broad when I was able to keep pace with Bart flying over 22 mph. After about 2 hours, we changed bikes at West Creek and McQueen and I headed out to finish my 3 hour 20 minute workout. Luckily, before I got very far, I ran into TGs ANNN, Kate and Carrie and after catching up for a bit, I convinced Kate to keep me company for a few loops of West Creek on our new bikes. Since Kate has been busy marathon training, we hadn't caught up recently and there was lots to chat about to help pass the time quickly. Kate and Annnn you are doing awesome with your running! Keep it up! Soon, Kate was headed home and I was headed out to finish my last big loop of WC. By the end of the ride -- my longest since last September -- the sun was shining, skies blue as they could be and I felt like I could ride for hours. . . . but it was back to the house to shower up and cook for wine club.

Sunday - Wine club was a success and all of the new recipies I decided to try out, actually turned out. (My favorite was the cabernet marinated flank steak with fontina cheese, basil and proscuitto.) While I curtailed my tastings compared to club gatherings in the past, I was not very excited about having to shake off the cobwebs and head out for an "easy" hour and 50 minute run followed by 2000 yards in the pool. The sunny skies and my new running skirt, helped motivate me out the door and TG40 (also a little sluggish from festivities) kept me motivated throughout the run. While not our most stellar run ever, we finished with a respectable 10:37 pace, enjoyed a little sunshine and headed to the pool for a strong, long swim.

Monday was a rest day for me on the exercise front but certainly not at work. We had a huge filing due at work and so I spent a long 12+ hour work day at the office.

Tuesday morning, my good weather karma must have continued. I had a great indoor cycle on McQueen at Endorphin. Suprisingly, as last week was my biggest week ever, my legs felt rested and ready to go and I felt good about the technique and strength building drills Craig had cooked up for us. I still need to remember to keep my head up, but I think think power repeats the last 3 weeks have made a slight impact in my strength when I head to my big gear.

The good weather is supposed to continue for a few more days. Hopefully I'll get a few more outside workouts in before it disappears!

Hills

After quickly agreeing to be a signatory to TG40's Hill Treaty, I realized that hills, like strength are one of my weakest limiters and clearly something I need to focus on in order to become a better biker and runner. Thank goodness there are at least no hills on the swim! And I acknowledge that there really is only one way to become better at them, do them.

So . . . I allowed myself last night to be easily convinced by running coach Brenda and TG SanDee to go to the Endorphin group run class where the focus of the night was hill repeats. The day before, when discussing my week's schedule, Coach Michael cautioned me not to take the hills too hard or I would struggle with Thursday's power repeats on the bike. Hah! I laughed to myself. Hill and easy are never used together in any of my sentences.

After a brief warm up around a hilly part of Tarrington subdivision, we headed to "the hill" to start our repeats. My assignment for the night - 10 hill repeats. Ten doesn't seem like a huge number, but because they are repeats up a hill, I feel like you should be able to multiply each repeat exponentially to come to the actual figure. From the bottom, the hill looked like the equivalent of the Byrd Park hill near the Nickel Bridge toll that I used to dread running up the year I marathon trained. And, my experience was no better. None of the hill repeats were "easy." I finished last each time, wheezed and felt like my legs might give out near the top of each climb. But, on a positive note, I finished ALL TEN and felt good that I had challenged myself to do them.

And while next week, I hope to head to Masters post work rather than the run clinic, TG SanDee and I are going to meet at an earlier time and avenge "the hill" for at least one more set of repeats. In the meantime, I'm headed out Saturday morning on my bike with Bart to find some of those hills that tortured me on last week's ride and see if I can make some progress on the mantra my old marathon coach used to repeat in our heads "Hills are your friend!"

What a difference a day makes!

I know we are supposed to have peaks and valleys in our training . . . and after my valley yesterday, I'm glad today was part way up the hill.

10 miles at WC with TG40 with my new Garmin. Ave pace around 10:30 (although we started and finished at the same time and ran next to each other, our Garmins were slightly different) and my legs felt MOUNTAINS better than yesterday.

After a quick set of eight 20 second striders, we headed to the pool finished our long workout with an easy 2000 yards.

Result - feeling much more optimistic about White Lake.