final pre-base prep

So this past weekend was the ride for Jules. It is a 3 hours spin fest that a good friend of mine has been running for the last 6 years. It is to help fight diabetes. I have to say that I selfishly take advantage of this event to put my training into high gear. when do you the opportunity to get a 3 hour coached session of all out spinning? not often. Any rate because of certain circumstances I was only able to complete 2:15 min of the event. During the event I burned just over 1600 calories. I weighed in at 190 lbs after the event. A whopping 4 and 3/4 pound loss. I held an average heart rate of 74% with a max heart rate at 96%. I felt pretty good too considering that I was going on zero hours sleep b/c I worked the night before. All things considered it went well.

On Sunday the sun was out and I was feeling a bit sluggish. We did the weekend stuff with the kids and then everyone took naps. I couldn't for the life of me let a beautiful day in March pass me buy so I went out for an easy 45 min recovery run. It was nice I didn't turn on my watch I just ran by feel. I know I covered 6.2 miles and finished the run under 42 mins. I didn't once find myself pushing or trying to over do it. It felt great.

Today I same 2100 in the pool and will got out for a run this afternoon. The swim was a 1/2 Ironman focus workout. I did a 400 warm up the 4x50 kick then the main set was 3x400's on 6min. It was hard. I finished the first set at 5:52 and then took off at 6:10 the second set was better at 5:50 with a take off at 6:00 and the last set I really focused on a good stroke an breathing and finished at 5:48. Other than the poor judgement on the first set I think I made up for the 10 sec delay after the first set. My run this afternoon will be race pace for the 1/2 marathon. I am going to work on 7:25. with good form and cover about 8 miles. This will be a good test to see how well I am recovering and the weather again is gorgeous! Let you know how it all shakes out!

So I went out for my run and got to say it was windy out there. the sun was warm though. Wore shorts for the 1st time in 2010. When I got started my legs felt heavy. Took me a while to get warmed up. A little over a mile into it I felt a bit better. I only was running at about 7:50 when i got started. At the 2 mile marker I stepped it it up to a 7:25. I held it there until the 4mile turn around. Where i headed back home. Mile 4-5 was around a 7:50 again. the wind was blasting me in the face but it felt good to just work on my form and focus on stride length. At mile 5 I picked it up again and went 7:00 the remainder of the run. I was a bit all over the place but it felt good to get some different speeds today. As the weather gets warmer and the season nears I plan on working intervals into my runs. I would like to add some track workouts this spring to help brake the speed plateau. Every little bit helps!