Bad day, good day
It's a good thing that a bad workout is often followed by a good one.
Sunday's swim was awful. It started with me not really wanting to get in the pool. Everyone was halfway finished with the warm up before I even started. I never did finish the warm up (I did 550 meters out of 1000) because we had to start the main set. I didn't finish that, either.
The main set was 10 time 50 meters with 30 seconds rest in between. We were supposed to swim at 90% effort. I did the first two at closer to "all out" effort than 90%. My times were awful. I was tired. I stopped. I swam 150 meters slowly and did the last two 50s. On the second to last, my time was a lot better. On the last one, I started having trouble pulling with my right arm. I couldn't seem to complete the pull -- it was my shoulder acting up again. Great. Just what I need.
I got out of the pool feeling frustrated and depressed. I used to like swim workouts. This one had made me miserable.
I wasn't all that excited to go to my Monday run, either. Running is hard and it's my weakest sport. But went. We started with a 3 km warm up. I did it with three teammates. Only one of them is actually a faster runner than I am, but I didn't like their warm up pace -- it was too fast for me. Warm ups are supposed to be slow. So I held back a bit and did it at a pace that felt more comfortable to me.
The main set was 1 km fast, 1 km slow, 1 km fast, 1 km slow. I wasn't sure how I would fare because the warm up had been too fast for me. Well, I must have been right to slow down the warm up because the main set was great. I expected to do between 5:30 and 5:40 on the fast kms. I did the first one in 4:54. The slow km was very slow -- 6:45. The second fast one was 5:02 and the second slow one was 6:35. I was able to do this without a break and I could have gone faster (coach said to run at 90% effort). I finished feeling strong and really good about the run.
Just a note on those "slow" kilometers. When I first started running, my training pace was around 7:30 per km and I never felt like I was running slowly. I finished my very first 5k in 2002 in 35:19 -- 7:04 per km. And this was a race. Last night's slow kilometers really were slow. I was able to lower my heart rate and I felt like I was doing a very slow jog at almost no effort. "Slow" for me now is faster than "fast" was less than four years ago. Maybe there's hope for my running afterall!
Sunday's swim was awful. It started with me not really wanting to get in the pool. Everyone was halfway finished with the warm up before I even started. I never did finish the warm up (I did 550 meters out of 1000) because we had to start the main set. I didn't finish that, either.
The main set was 10 time 50 meters with 30 seconds rest in between. We were supposed to swim at 90% effort. I did the first two at closer to "all out" effort than 90%. My times were awful. I was tired. I stopped. I swam 150 meters slowly and did the last two 50s. On the second to last, my time was a lot better. On the last one, I started having trouble pulling with my right arm. I couldn't seem to complete the pull -- it was my shoulder acting up again. Great. Just what I need.
I got out of the pool feeling frustrated and depressed. I used to like swim workouts. This one had made me miserable.
I wasn't all that excited to go to my Monday run, either. Running is hard and it's my weakest sport. But went. We started with a 3 km warm up. I did it with three teammates. Only one of them is actually a faster runner than I am, but I didn't like their warm up pace -- it was too fast for me. Warm ups are supposed to be slow. So I held back a bit and did it at a pace that felt more comfortable to me.
The main set was 1 km fast, 1 km slow, 1 km fast, 1 km slow. I wasn't sure how I would fare because the warm up had been too fast for me. Well, I must have been right to slow down the warm up because the main set was great. I expected to do between 5:30 and 5:40 on the fast kms. I did the first one in 4:54. The slow km was very slow -- 6:45. The second fast one was 5:02 and the second slow one was 6:35. I was able to do this without a break and I could have gone faster (coach said to run at 90% effort). I finished feeling strong and really good about the run.
Just a note on those "slow" kilometers. When I first started running, my training pace was around 7:30 per km and I never felt like I was running slowly. I finished my very first 5k in 2002 in 35:19 -- 7:04 per km. And this was a race. Last night's slow kilometers really were slow. I was able to lower my heart rate and I felt like I was doing a very slow jog at almost no effort. "Slow" for me now is faster than "fast" was less than four years ago. Maybe there's hope for my running afterall!
posted by bari | 09:39
1 Comments:
What you consider a slow pace is, like, rocket pace for me. Your warm-up is my all time fastest run where I die at the end from exhaustion! :) You should be proud.
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