Tuesday, September 22, 2009

If I Don't See Smiles, You're Not Racing

This morning was my last Terrier run before the race. I can't believe it's only five days away! I got up and had a piece of toast with peanut butter before heading out. I walked about half of the way there and ran the last 0.50 miles in 5:07 (10:13 pace). When I got to the meeting spot, I hung out there for a while with the rest of the people who had shown up for practice. Spencer was about 5 minutes late, so we got a bit of a late start to the workout.

We headed over to do the strides as usual. I had thought about timing them this morning, but figured that I'd just do that next time instead. I have enough to think about right now as it is. We did all the normal strides, including skipping, high knees, butt kicks, and karaoke. Towards the end, Spencer said that we should all do the same drill as last week - the side lunges. I decided to sit that one out. Since my legs are still a little bit sore from last week, I figured that I'd be pressing my luck by doing it today also. Again, I'm not entirely sure of the time, but I'd say we did about 0.50 miles in 5 minutes.

Once we were done with the warm-up, we all ran over to the Start. For the very first time, I held my own with the group. I actually finished towards the front! Granted, I know that everyone else wasn't really pushing it, but I wasn't really either. It was maybe a little bit faster than I would have been 100% comfortable and I'm not sure how long I could have maintained that pace, but I ran the 1.25 miles in 10:04 (8:03 pace). I can't even begin to explain how excited I was not to be the last one there. I know that it doesn't really matter, but it was just a nice boost going into the race to know that I can run at a faster pace than I would on my own when there are people around.

Finally, I got my turn of doing the "easy" workout for the people who are racing this weekend instead of the regular Sprint/Olympic group workout. Spencer told us that we should really take it easy on the workout and that we should be smiling the whole time. He said that if he didn't see us smiling, we wouldn't be racing this weekend, so we better be sure to keep smiling!
The workout was 3 x 440 yards (1/4 mile) and 3 x 220 yards (1/8 mile). We would have 1:30 recovery after the 440s and 1:00 recovery after the 220s. I ended up doing the running portion of the workout (1.125 miles) in 8:33 (7:36 pace).

Today ended up being quite a speedy day for me. But, I did keep smiling the whole time. And I didn't leave feeling tired, so all in all, I think it was a good morning. Today is the first day that we can pick up our packets for the race, so I think I'll be going after work (if not at lunch) to pick it up. I'm really nervous about finding out what swim wave I'm in and I'm hoping that I'm towards the front of the race so that I don't have to worry about the bike cut-off time. I guess I'll find out later today!

Total Miles (including strides): 3.375 in 28:44 (8:30 pace)

Calories: 305
Maximum HR: 191
Average HR: 169

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