Speed Workout Numero Due

I went out yesterday for my second speed workout from coach Vanessa. I was suppose to get out with her at 7 a.m., but my body was not having it after the workout the day before (read post below.) It was raining pretty heavily around 6:25 in the morning, and I thought there is no way that anyone in their right mind is going out there to run this morning. Well, I forgot that Vanessa is obviously not in her right mind! So, I went to the office to get some work done yesterday, and decided that I would try to go out later in the afternoon for my speed workout. I really dislike the feeling of knowing that I have a workout in front of me. I felt guilty that I did not get out of the rack and get it done, and I was nervous about how it was going to affect my performance when I finally got to the track. While I was working in my office, I received a call from my former piano student, Noah,  who I train with during the summer. I have trained with a lot of former students, both from the university and from my private piano studio. Last summer, Adam and I trained Noah towards his first duathlon. It was great watching him race. Noah is a college student with one year left at one of those prestigious Ivy League institutions. College can sometimes be unforgiving on the old waist line. With the abundance of inexpensive hops and barley, quarter wings, and availability of junk food both in and out of the cafeteria, it is no wonder that so many college students come back weighing a good ten or fifteen pounds heavier than they did when they left for school. Cousin Matthew—who lasted exactly three days at Coach Mark's "Fat Camp—" put on thirty pounds. Here are some suggestions to all college students looking to stave off the pounds during the course of the academic year:

1) Avoid alcohol: Sure, the occasional beer or two is fine, but several beers are just downright idiotic. I should say, if you drink enough, you will almost undoubtedly end up looking idiotic. People generally have very poor self awareness after five or six beers. If that does not impede your insatiable appetite for the spirits, just keep in mind the now infamous words of my brother Len, who once warned me: "Beer leads to heroine."

2) Stay away from anyplace open past 10:00 p.m. If a restaurant is open past 10:00 p.m., they are invariably serving food to idiots who have been drinking far too much alcohol to find shoving copious amounts of curly fries, chicken wings, cheeseburger "sliders," potato skins, mozzarella sticks, and various sodium enriched, high fat, and caloric foods down their throat  inappropriate.

3) Nurse that beer! Seriously. If you are worried about looking cool for your friends, just stick an imaginary nipple on that bottle. If everyone is drinking at a much faster rate than you are, no one will know how many beers you have had. No one will care.

Back to my speed workout. Here is what I did yesterday:

2 mile warmup
Two, 1 mile cut-downs:  1st at 7:45/2nd at 7:28 with a recovery lap in between
800 recovery lap
then 3x800 (it was suppose to be 4x800, but I ran out of time, honest!) They went down like this:

1st 800: 3:45
2nd 800: 3:27
3rd 800: 3:15

Then I did a mile and a half cool down. I felt pretty good considering the long bike workout the day before with all the hills. This morning Coach Vanessa met me at my house and I ran the last four miles of her six mile recovery run. I'm tapering—remember.

Noah did pretty good on the track with me. It was hysterical to watch him run because he was wearing his Vibrams Five Fingers. Halfway through my workout, I was coming up behind him on the track when I noticed he was not wearing his Vibrams at all. Sans shoes! This guy really thinks he has some Tarahumara in him. 

Noah's feet turned the loveliest shade of red from the track. 

Running my last 800 so fast that Noah can hardly keep up with me.

The side of me I would prefer most of my competitors get to see. But I am a realist.

More soon. Swim lesson tomorrow with Coach Jack. More on that soon... and the new rig. 

Train Smart!