Nunsense

I realize I have been slacking a bit on the actual training posts this week, although considering I did give you all three posts to read that were chock-full of interesting and fun-filled things, you shouldn't be complaining. Just because you all need something to do at work while you're pretending to look busy doesn't mean you have to harass me about not posting anything. Why don't you go to Sporcle and quiz yourself on something useful, like naming all the kings and queens of England or the United States Military ranks (yes, I have done both those quizzes). Or go to Facebook and, if you're anything like me, you will find yourself three hours later looking at the photo's of your roommate's second cousin's niece's third birthday party extravaganza.

Anyway, since you've asked for it, I'll give it to you.

This week has been pretty unspectacular training-wise. We were on vacation until Monday evening, so I never went on my long run over the weekend. After SJ and my epic trip to the sticks, I decided to not try and squeeze in a run on Monday and just give myself the day to relax. Tuesday is usually my rest day, but now that I don't have FF1 class, I have somehow managed to come up with five useful hours in my day so I used them to go for a long-ish run. I'm starting to get to that point in training where I don't consider 10.5 miles a long run - which is both semi-scary and also bad-ass. Wednesday I hit the bike for an easy 20 miler down to visit SJ at the club and then yesterday it was back to the track.

I had five1600 repeats on schedule for tomorrow. I also had play tickets for later that evening so I was in somewhat of a time crunch, but SJ, being the stellar wife that she is, made sure everything was all set to go when I got back so I could get my workout in. Seeing as how my last foray onto the track for 1600 repeats went (hint: not very well), I decided that today would be the day that I got my pacing down. After running a few laps around the track for a warm-up, I set off on my first of five repeats.

My goal was a 7:10 pace, which is roughly a minute faster than GMP, but slower than my 5k pace. I figured, if I was going to have to do five of these bad boys, I wanted to make sure I could finish them all without feeling like I was going to pass out/collapse/die. Alastair is still funky on split times on the track and putting my 1600s at 1.10 miles, but I haven't had time to worry about it. He did run long in Chicago as well, so it is something that I should probably look into since so much of my training is based on mileage and pacing, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Mamadukes has a Garmin as well (Mother's Day present from SJ and I - I know, we are awesome), so I am thinking of borrowing hers on my next track workout to see what's up.

Anyway, as soon as I started running, the entire JV football team came walking out to the area right next to the track for practice. Great, now I even have an audience for this. Also, seeing as how I can never catch a break on Thursdays and it is either, A) raining, B) so humid it gives saunas a run for their money, C) ridiculously hot, or D) all of the above, I was pretty much running in hot pants that were riding so far up my butt I should have just worn a thong, and a sports bra, so I probably should have collected money from them.

 Regardless, I got on with my workout. 20 laps around a track is excruciatingly boring, and considering I also ran a 400 between each repeat as a "rest", plus 6 laps each for a warm-up and cool down, 36 laps is even more so. Here's how it went:

Laps 1-6: Nice and easy warm-up pace. Feeling out the track - seeing if there were any spots I should be aware of to avoid. Settling in. 

Laps 7-10: Not too bad. I can totally handle four more of these.

Laps 11-15: Alright, now I'm starting to get tired. How many more laps do I have?

Laps 16-20: This is awful. It's so muggy. When did the sun come out?

Laps 21-36: I don't remember as I was in somewhat of a run coma due to both the boringness of the run as well as the counterclockwise vortex I was creating for myself by running in so many circles.

The good news is that I was much, much better at pacing myself this time around. While Alastair was really messing me up in terms of accurate splits, at least I stuck to the predetermined finishing pace. Here are the results as follows:

*Mile 1: 7:18.8
Mile 2: 7:12.7
Mile 3: 7:19.7
Mile 4: 7:17.0
**Mile 5: 7:00.0

*I am writing these as mile times, but according to Alastair they are 1.10 miles, or 1600 meters. I will get that sorted out at some point.
**I actually forgot to start the lap counter for this lap and am only going by my perceived rate of exertion. I purposefully pushed this one and was hoping to negative split, but since I have to actual split times I am just going to guess. Yes, even I sometimes have training mishaps.

Overall, I am stoked about my pacing this past go around. I do one more day of 1600 repeats in two weeks and then I start to rotate between 800s and 1600s. Hopefully I can get my pacing down even better on the next time around.

On a much lighter note, SJ and I saw a ridiculously funny play last night called "Nunsense". If any of you ever went to Catholic school or are Catholic or are just not adverse to things that are super funny, I highly suggest you get yourself over to the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport to see this show before it ends on September 8. It won't disappoint. And as a bonus - if you use the code: HYMCA, you will also get $5 off your ticket price, and the theater will donate $10 to the Huntington Y. You get a night of laughs AND can feel good about yourself for helping out the Y. It's a win-win for everyone!

Bike ride today and then the TOBAY Triathlon tomorrow. That means another sober evening and another race report for you, fellow readers. Also, TOBAY is sponsored by Blue Point Brewery, so I fully intend on imbibing directly after I cross the finish line and then, to top off the already spectacular day, Pops and Mary are hosting a crab feast (no, not those kinds of crabs, get your mind out of the gutter!). Looks like I will be bringing an overnight bag my friends.

See you all after the weekend. If you don't have anything better to do than wake up at 6:00am on a Saturday morning, then stop down to Teddy Roosevelt Park in Oyster Bay and cheer on me and my fellow triathletes.

Happy training and good luck to any racers out there.