Pushing

My mid week run was a track workout this week. Here are the instructions for the main set:

3K (7.5 laps) at half marathon pace (8:30)
400 easy
2K (5 laps) at 10K pace (8:10 or HR 170-172)
400 easy
1K (2.5 laps) at 5K pace (7:45-8:00 or HR 175)

When I first saw that my thoughts were: "In which universe is my half marathon pace an 8:30???" and "Can you give me directions to next wormhole???".

This had to be a mistake. But I refrained from calling the coach to ask her to fix this, because I had this nudge that she's only going to tell me that it's not a mistake.

Quite honestly, I was fussing about those "ridiculous" paces all night Tuesday, I was dreading it going to bed and it was the first thought on my mind waking up. But I did still get up, get ready and out of the door. I hit the track for my warm up and right before the main set started, I took another sip of water and had a heart to heart with myself: "You are going to try your very best to nail these paces, just giving up is not an option!"

Guess what happened?

To say that I am stoked about this, would be an understatement! I am still not buying into the idea, that I would be able to run a half marathon at this pace any time soon, but it sure shows me, that I can do stuff, if I would just push myself a little more often.


And since we are on the topic of "pushing": Today's swim.

The total workout was 3,000 yards and had 2x 500 yards race efforts sprinkled in. The good thing with swimming with a group in a big pool is, that we actually get the chance to practice pool swim races. I still hate them, but yes, it's good practice to recreate race conditions. It also helps to push a little bit harder, when you have other people chasing you down.

That was also shown beautifully, when I swam an 8:08 on my first effort under race condition simulation (changing lanes under ropes and snake along) while I "only" made it a 8:18 for my second effort that everyone did by themselves without lane changes. The second effort should have been faster, because I didn't have to change lanes, but obviously people chasing me is a much bigger motivator.