...For being missing for a few days this time. I was busy enjoying my weekend and I don't do that often enough so I'm glad I just let myself go and did whatever this weekend. And then I started work on Monday so things have been busy managing life and real work hours. That having been said, I do owe you/myself some training/race updates so let's get to it! (:
Skipped the swim on Friday morning because I had cramps Thursday night and wasn't sleeping well, took the Friday evening interval workout as planned, did a way better job than I thought I would and was really happy about that.
Friday's Workout: PM interval run, main set of 2 x 1 mi @ 10k pace (7:35-7:50) w/ 3 mins rest, 3-4 x ½ mi @ 5k pace (7:05-7:20) w/ 3 mins rest (walking rests)
Summary:
- Totals: 7.27 mi, 1:11:23, 9:50 average pace
- 1 mi splits: 7:40.2, 7:38.4
- 1/2 mi splits: 3:35.6 (7:11), 3:37.4 (7:15), 3:34.9 (7:10), 3:36.4 (7:13)
Hit Rate: 21/28 (75%)
Took Saturday off as planned so I could be ready to try and run fast on Sunday! At which I was sort of successful. Went a 23:17 (official time), which wasn't what I had hoped it would be (was aiming for a 22 something) but I feel okay about it. Aimed high, fell short, still came away with a PB which I'm not gonna complain about.
Sunday's race official: 5k, 23:17, 7:30 pace
Sunday's race via Garmin: 3.14 mi, 23:24, 7:27 pace, 182 spm average
Pace splits by mile: 7:24, 7:22, 7:42, 6:36
Hit Rate: 22/29 (75.8%)
Thoughts about the race: It was harder than I thought it was gonna be. It was a rainy cool day, which played to my advantage, no wind which was good, but I just didn't have enough in me for the third mile. The first mile felt strong, the second mile took a little pushing to hold pace and I really genuinely thought I could sustain that effort through mile three but I just didn't have it. I think I did mentally quit a little bit when it got tough and I settled for something in the 7:40 range when I probably shouldn't have, but really there was genuinely not much left in my legs at that point. Henry has a wonderful (read: awful) finish line photo of me and the look on my face is just such a disaster. I push my jaw forward when I'm in a lot of pain because it helps me restrict the tension to my face so it doesn't tighten up my shoulders when I'm running, but it looks so terrible, you can tell I'm just absolutely dying. In any case, it was what I had to give.
For reference, when I ran this race last year, my splits were 7:25, 7:43, 7:50 so I was able to really improve on that seeing as I can hold that first mile pace for another mile now. The next time we do this (early July), the goal will be to see it through for all three miles. We'll see how it goes. For now, I'll take the PB and move on.
Monday's Workout: AM easy/base run, 8 mi
Summary: 8.44 mi, 1:23:53, 9:56 pace, 172 spm
Pace splits by mile: 10:08, 10:12, 10:12, 10:04, 9:55, 9:49, 9:43, 9:48, 9:07
Hit Rate: 23/30 (76.6%)
This one felt bad. It was a fasted morning workout the day after a race, what was I expecting really? I just felt sluggish the whole way, it felt like a struggle just finishing, although the splits will speak to the fact that I did seem to get warmer after the first four miles and things were incrementally improving as the run went on. In any case, it was just a run I took to get some more miles in, and that was all I needed from it.
Tuesday's Workout: AM CMSC practice, mid-distance free day
Summary:
- WU: 400 swim, 3 x 100 swim
- Pre-set: 4 x 150 @ 10-15 SR, 50 kk/50 dr/50 sw
- Main Set:
- 6 x 50 @ 10SR, odds build to 80%, evens hold 80%
- 3 x 200 @ base (3:10), descend 1-3
- 4 x 50 @ 10SR, odds build to 80%, evens hold 80%
- 3 x 200 @ base +5 (3:20), descend 1-3
- 2 x 50 @ 10SR, odds build to 80%, evens hold 80%
- 1 x 200 @ base +10 (3:30) - this was 3 x 200, descend 1-3 as written but we ran out of time
- WD: 100 easy
- Total Distance: 3400 LCM
Hit Rate: 24/31 (77.4%)
I was not a happy camper about going to this practice. I had been really emotionally upset about a lot of things the night before, although Henry did eventually get me to sleep. I didn't get a ton of sleep, I had actually planned on not going, but I woke up around 4:50 and I would've felt awful if I just went back to sleep so I sucked it up and went to practice. I really wasn't feeling it at all. I swam in the 1:35 base lane, turns out that the pace times are fine although everyone in the lane is super super fast which made me feel kind of crappy because I just like hung off the back 10-15 seconds behind everyone else and it's sort of obvious that I'm really slow. I couldn't really find a good excuse to leave the lane though. Honestly the slower lane is just way too slow and it wasn't like I was missing pace times or getting lapped so I felt like I just needed to suck up my pride and put my head down and do the work.
In reality though "doing the work" was really just finishing. I didn't try that hard, I didn't actually descend anything, I just swam and made the pace times and that's all I did. I actually really wanted to leave like pretty much immediately after the warm up, and I kept saying to myself, "Okay I'll leave after this set", but I never did. I just kept saying it after each little bit of the set and at some point it was like, "Oh it's actually time to leave". So yeah, I got through it somehow. Only other notable thing was that I had that right shoulder kink again during warm up, but it actually didn't bother me at all during the set (my swimming was probably higher quality during the set), so hopefully it stays better.
This morning I skipped practice, just didn't feel like going, so this is happening...Hit Rate: 24/32 (75%) And this PM, I took a run!
Today's Workout: PM base run
Summary: 8.42 mi, 1:14:21, 8:50 pace, 173 spm average
Pace splits by mile: 8:55, 8:51, 9:03, 8:56, 8:45, 8:47, 8:48, 8:55, 7:55
Hit Rate: 25/33 (75.7%)
This was supposed to be a tempo run, but I've decided that I really don't care. There is so much in the world that I do care about and feeling the weight of expectations tethered to all of my workouts was really getting to me. I would like to go back to that phase of my college club swim career where all I did was show up to as many practices as was reasonable given whatever else was going on in my life and racing on random weekends knowing I was going to swim terribly and actually swimming terribly and having a blast doing it anyways. I want to be fit enough to race and enjoy the experience of racing. Improving and dropping time and winning things on the occasion is fantastic, but it takes so much out of me in order to do that. Sometimes you just have to decide when things aren't worth it anymore. I want to have mental and physical energy to put towards my clinic work and my studying and the time I have to spend with Henry and friends. I want my life to drift a little more closer to normal because I've been getting tastes of it here and there recently and I really like that. I want to keep racing and training because I love it, but I don't want either of those things to feel like a chore. It was starting to feel like a chore. So I'm gonna drop the expectations and the run training plan and just swim and run and try to do things because they're good for me and because I love them. I've never been good at that, but I'm gonna try. I'll still keep "planning" in the sense that I'll pen things into the calendar ahead of time because if I have no structure I'll just spend all my time napping, but it'll be flexible and there will be no demands on the kinds of workouts I have to do. Gonna keep working on that whole balance thing.
In any case, with regards to the actual run today, it felt sort of interesting...I knew it was a comfortable pace mentally just from the info I was getting from my legs and from my heart rate and breathing rate and what not, but it really never felt comfortable. I have a bit of a head cold so my nose is simultaneously really runny while feeling really dry and I've been coughing so my airway is a little irritated and the end result is that I think that's why I never got comfortable. It's hard to be comfortable with a head cold. The weather was cool though and the pace was quick in a very relaxed way and I was surprised that I was able to take a run at this kind of distance at this kind of pace and have it feel as good as it did. I really hope that's not an anomalous thing, I really hope my natural running pace is just coming up bit by bit. It'll take a lot of time to sort that out though, I'll try not to read too much into one run.
The plan as of right now for tomorrow is morning swim practice and a run with Henry in the evening. We'll see what actually happens. Happy Wednesday! (:
Much love,
Jess
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