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!

Who Fartlek'd? The Steep Learning Curve Of Mile Repeats

A little fatigue set in on Tuesday following a brutal introduction to mile repeats by my friend Vanessa. My legs were a little bit on the jello-y side for the rest of the evening, but I managed to squeeze in some much needed rest. 

Tuesday's workout called for a bike/run. I ran to the track to meet my buddy Vanessa, who just came off of an impressive 3:38 at Boston. She thinks she could have ran it faster, and I have no doubts that next time around, she most certainly will. The plan was to do mile repeats on Tuesday. The run from my house to the track is almost three miles. I had to leave a little later than I wanted to help get the boys off to school. When I arrived there at nine, I was already  sweating fiercely. If I have not already mentioned, it went right from mid-50's to 88 degrees in the matter of a day here in western New York. What is up with that? Anyway, the humidity Tuesday morning was right around a bazillion percent. (funny, spell check recognizes the word "bazillion.")

Here is Vanessa trying to convince me that mile repeats are a good idea.

This is me NOT buying it.

For those of you who do not know what mile repeats are I will give you the skinny: Basically,  you take your the average of your best 10k times as a base for your first split. So, if your average 10k time is somewhere in the 48 minute range, you want to run your first mile split in about 8:00. With each consecutive  split, you want to run 5 to 7 seconds faster. In between splits, you run a slow recovery lap around the track before you delve back into the fiery furnace of pain. 

It was time for my first go. Eight minute mile. I got this. Run Forest run. I crossed the finish line in 7:35—waaaaaay too fast for a morning with a bazillion percent humidity. 

I took a swig of GU2O and did a recovery lap. As I was running the lap with Vanessa, I expressed concern that she might have to resuscitate if I run any faster. She said that I ought to try and run at least the same split, or 3 seconds faster. Okay, second time around, I finished right at 7:33. So, I ran over to my water, poured it on my head and started running my second recovery lap. It seems so easy. Here we go, third time around:

This is me feeling completely dejected after my miserable attempt at mile repeats.

We planned on running five mile repeats this morning. I am embarrassed to admit that I only was able to do two. I got less than a quarter mile around the track on my third repeat and the body said, "Excuse me... what are you doing?" I had to shut it down. I did, however, run it back to the house with Vanessa talking about medievalist nerdy stuff (she's a nerdy medievalist,) although, she is not really nerdy, but supercool. I learned some valuable lessons as a result of my feeble first attempt at a track workout:

1) Do not go out past 7:00 a.m. to start mile repeats. 

2) Don't believe Vanessa when she says she "I am not trying to kill you," then laughs hysterically as she turns around and heads toward the track.

3) Try NOT to run in bazillion degree heat with bazillion percent humidity. 

Later on that afternoon, I hopped on my bike and did a ride out to work. I made sure I went the extraordinarily long way, because it is not that far to work—only 11 miles, but I made it fifteen. I did some work and rode back a couple hours later. The legs were a little fatigued Tuesday evening. 

Today I had my first swim lesson with Coach Jack. That's right, you heard it here. I decided I did not want to go on being a less than average swimmer. Coach Jack is awesome. More on my lesson and progress later. This evening i ran my 8.35 mile course in 1:05:36, completely shattering my old course record (set on Sunday) by four minutes! Think I am steadily getting the nutrition part down on my long runs. No lower g.i. issues today—thank goodness!

Breaking News: Stella got her first hair cut yesterday. 

Here are the before and after pictures:

Isn't she cute?

Rig Update: Rig is being built by the only cat I trust to do it. I will be taking some pics and movies of the build and sharing them on my blog. Very excited for the build. More excited to ride it!

More soon. Train Smart!