Thursday, March 8, 2012

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.

3 comments:

  1. Yay for not crapping your pants!:)
    I think it would be so awesome to have a coach like that...to make me do workouts that I'm not sure I can actually get through. That extra push sounds awesome!

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    1. Yes, that one part of why I am being coached. The other part is, that I never worry before races, because I just know that I am prepared properly. It's not necessary to hire a coach (on an age group level anyways), but I see is at a nice treat for myself.

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  2. haha. i lol'd when i saw that status on FB. it always amazes me how coaches always seem to know that you are capable of hitting the paces they give you! awesome job on the workout!

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