Late runs and early swims

So...I spur of the moment signed up for a half marathon yesterday! Mom pointed out a flyer she had noticed previously at the rink where my little brother has hockey camp and thought it'd be a good idea for me to go run the race. So I decided to do it! It's in 11 days. I am (perhaps falsely) confident in my ability to cover the distance, but super unconfident in my ability to run it at anything mildly resembling a reasonable speed. It's an out and back course though, so I figure I'll go out easy (the goal is averaging ~9:00 min miles, but I'd be okay with anything in the 9:00-9:30 range) and try to build and negative split it on the back end on the way in. That's the game plan, we'll see if it plays out that way.

Because of this upcoming race though, I've had to make some changes to my training plans for the next two weeks to make sure my run game is up to par for the race. It's also forcing me to really take training seriously (including swimming, since that's a cardiovascular endurance thing) which is a nice change of pace. I need that race pressure kick in the butt, we've talked about this already, so it's a good place to be I think.

That having been said, I took last night's run pretty late and sort of close to dinner (about an hour afterwards) and it was rainy which was simultaneously nice because it was cool and simultaneously not because wind/wet. But whatever. I had a negative split 6ish miler planned but ended up doing a track workout because Coen wanted to go play basketball and I can supervise his ballin' while running on the track. He was a trooper, he played a lot of ball, because my run was pretty long. I had been hoping to do a pyramid set (400 through 1600) with 1/2 distance active recoveries, but it became very clear early on that I wasn't going to survive that at current fitness slash closeness to dinner so I reshaped the workout. Here it is!

Yesterday's Workout:

• WU: 1 mile easy (9:47.7/9:50)
• Set: 5 x 
• 400 fast (1:56.3/7:40, 2:00.5/7:51, 2:07.7/8:28, 1:59.9/8:04, 2:03.3/8:16)
• 200 easy
• 800 fast (4:04.2/7:57, 4:04.1/7:58, 4:24.8/8:50, 4:13.0/8:22, 4:07.7/8:14)
• 400 easy
• WD: 1 mile easy

Summary: 7.54 mi, 1:12:46, 9:39 pace.
Hit rate: 7/9 (77.7%)

I was really aiming to be closer to the 7:45-8:00 pace range (also I realize that the pace numbers are sort of out of whack, I don't really know why which is why I included the overall time estimates, although those aren't perfect either since I was hand clicking the lap buttons rather than using a more accurate measure) so I was disappointed with the pace overall, but honestly it was a tough workout and I put in an effort I was more than happy with. All this tells me is that I have to put a lot more work into speed in the future (August?) but I'll take what I've got for now.

This morning I took an easy swim, just trying to get back into it after having been pretty inconsistent with pool time since ECCs. My arms are weak, I felt very slow/sluggish, but I'm glad I went. St. Clair is nice because the pool feels fast since it's shallow and the ceiling is low, but it's also really hot which is annoying. I need to do more core work, I can really tell that my core is weak and my body position isn't great. I also need more discipline when it comes to breath control (breathing pattern consistency, not breathing in/out of walls, etc.). Will probably get back in and try to do a lot of pull work tomorrow to slowly bring that upper body strength back. But in any case, here was today's set:

Today's Morning Swim Workout:

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 4 x 200 free @ 3:45 (wow so slow, lots of rest)
• 8 x 50 IMO @ 1:00
• 4 x 100 kick @ 2:00
• 4 x 100 free pull @ 1:55 (really slow compared to the kick)
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3200 SCM (70 mins)

Hit rate: 8/10 (80%)

At the end of the day, the goal of these swims is just to maintain some semblance of swim fitness while I try to train more of the running (and cycling in August). This afternoon I'll take a long run (haven't quite decided time/distance yet, will see how I'm feeling) while Coen is at hockey camp and that'll be that for today! I'll be back later in the day with another update hopefully. (:

Much love,
Jess