So I've had a lot of time to swim and run these past few days and I'm seeing some nice improvement!
I did a 5 mile run the other day and really tried to push the pace, when I got home and downloaded the run my Garmin clocked me at a 7:52 pace!! Now for some of you that may not seem like anything significant but for me it's gold!! Long long ago (when I was in my 20's and 30's) I always seemed to train at an 8:00 minute pace. It was like clockwork. Now days it's more like 8:30. When I try to run easy I can get it to around an 8:45-8:50, but I feel like I'm going super slow. Now don't get me wrong, that 7:52 had me working, but it felt good!
Two days after that I went out for a 6 mile run and told myself that I was going to keep it down a little. Six miles is typically when my left knee really starts to scream. It feels like it starts to swell inside the joint and hurts like I'm doing some damage to it so I don't like to push the pace at this distance. (This one had microfracture surgery back in 2002 and has never felt "right"). So I got home and downloaded the data and low and behold 8:11 average pace!! Whooo Hoooo!!!
And as far as my swimming goes, I've been extremely negligent on the amount of time I've been in the water this year. I wrote a post about my first time in the pool a while back and since then I've been lucky to be in the pool once a week. So I've swam the last 3 days in a row and have watched my 100 yard time go down 5 seconds! And that's on a 400 as well as a pure 100!! When I'm in good swim shape I usually bring my 100's in on 1:26 when I'm repeating on 1:45, 1:30 when I'm just cruising. (This must sound like total gibberish to any non swimmers!!) So on my first of the three swims the 100's took me 1:40 and I had to extend the repeat interval to 1:50- ugh. So yesterday I bought the 400 in on 3:20 - Sweet! Still not where it needs to be but nice to see the improvement!!
I just love how the pressure of an upcoming race gets me in gear. I'm looking forward to Crawfishman and White Lake two weeks later!
Oh... and I just found out that my nephew, sister and brother in law may come and watch me at Crawfishman. They live about 20 minutes away from the race! Whoo Hooo .... more performance pressure!!
It looks like things are coming together for you. Sometimes things just start to *click*. I find it hard to believe you've been racing for 26 years. You look way too young!
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