Kisses to Ze Track

I'm in love with Princess Leia.  Since my car took a giant poo on me, I got to spend a ton of time riding her to and from work last week.  Recently I redid my training program so I could have Sundays devoted to my biking day.  My running/biking buddy is trying to get me to do a 30 mile "recovery ride" with the area bike club, so I've been trying to do longer rides so I could hang with the cool kids.  Sunday I set out to do 20-25.  Of course, I set out to do the ride after laying on the couch for hours alternating between apple juice, water, and gatorade to restore my hydration levels.  Oh, also giving plenty of attention to my DVR that has been sorely neglected as of late.

Miss Jenn had just gotten back in to town and wanted to hang out so I decided I'd bike to her (with some extra miles thrown in) and then bike home when I was done.  Obviously not the ideal way to get 20 miles in, but hanging out is more important than biking.  :)  Aaron had adjusted my seat height a couple days prior so this was my first ride post-adjustment.  It made all of the difference.  I felt way more comfortable on the bike, the seat felt more comfortable, and I felt a lot more steady.  I tried to focus on keeping my speed up and not being such a wuss with slowing down for twists and turns on the trail.  Success!

Of course, after hanging out much too late the sun was setting as I was leaving Jenn's, so I knew I was going to have to get only 20 miles total in.  Let me say that biking at dusk with the fireflies lighting up the trail has got to be the most beautiful thing in the world.  Yes, it's also one of the least safe things in the world, but we'll forget that part for now.  I saw a baby deer, that I scared the hell out of.  And then saw his giant dad a mile or two later.  Then I started getting really concerned about hitting a deer on my bike.  I'm deathly afraid of driving at dusk because I'm so afraid of hitting a deer.  Fairly certain that hitting one on my bike would destroy my bike, and potentially also myself. 

I did the 20 miles in 1:25:04 for a pace of 14.11 mph.
My fastest mile was 16.3 mph zoooooooooom!
And my maximum pace was 22.7 mph (yes, I was probably squeezing my brakes throughout.  baby steps people.)

Monday I hit the track for 8 x 400 meter repeats (6:28-6:48 pace).  Upon arriving to the track I noticed a few things:  1) it was hot.  2)  I failed to bring any water.  Excellent.  I started in on my slow warm up mile and I was throwing down some serious sweat droplets.

During my first 400, at roughly the 200 m. mark I felt a spark of pain in my right hip (similar to the pain the last time I did 400 meter repeats...fail).  I let up on the pace a little bit, and stretched out once I finished the 400 before going in to my 400 meter recovery jog.  I decided that I would revamp the work out to 800's instead of 400's using last week's pace guidelines.  Once the 800's were over, I felt the legs were loose enough to try another 400, and then 2 x 200's.  All repeats had a 400 m. jog in between them, except the 200's which had 200 m. jogs.  Following here?

warm up mile-9:28
400-1:43 (6:52 pace)
800-3:45 (7:30 pace)
800-3:41 (7:14 pace)
800-3:41 (7:22 pace)
400-1:47 (6:52 pace)
200-:49 (6:17)
200-:49 (6:49)
**These paces are factored on the actual distance (some were .01 long, so that's why the math doesn't quite add up.)  The 2nd 400 felt fine, so for future training, I will make sure that I do an 800 m. interval prior to starting 400's to make sure my legs are nice and warmed up.  It's not surprising that my body would have troubles going from a 9:30 pace to a 6:30 pace.

I did the 5 miles in 45:59 for a pace of 9:12.

It was the strangest thing, while doing one of my repeats, the smell of grilled meat filled the air.  As you may know, I'm not the biggest fan of meat.  But I wanted some right.that.minute.  It was insane.  I compromised with myself that if I ran hard for the rest of the speed work, I could get some meat for dinner.  Go figure, as soon as I was done, meat sounded as nasty as it normally does.  Silly tummy.