I heart track

I missed my indoor workout two weeks ago as I had a cold coming on. I actually took 4 days off due to illness. Then that Friday, Justin and I drove to Whistler for a long weekend. We xc skied that afternoon and then snowboarded the next two days. The snow was amazing and we had a blast. We were also quite sore after all that. We drove home Monday afternoon and I missed another track workout.
I got back on to my workout routine on Tuesday and finished my week with my scheduled bikes and swims and a solid brick workout Saturday and a long run on Sunday (yesterday). On Saturday, the run portion of my brick took me by the athletic fields and stadiums near UW and I saw runners warming up and realized there was an indoor track meet. I raced over to the complex and got to see the end of the men's mile (top 3 broke 4 minutes) and then the 3000m races which were equally impressive with 4+ runners breaking 8 minutes. It also showed what a small world the running community becomes as I got to see the Cal Irvine coach who I've known since 1990 and two guys I competed against in college who are both coaching now: Robert Gary ran for Ohio State (now head coach) and was an Olympian in the steeplechase and Louie Quintana who ran for Villanova and is now coaching at Arizona State. So an all-around fun day-- seeing old friends/competitors and once again being inspired by great performances.

Tonight I finally got back to an indoor workout for me and ran 400, 400, 800, 400, 400, 800, 400, 400. It was a solid workout and I'll probably be quite sore in the morning, but that's ok. I love track.

Correction

In re-reading my last post I realized I put the wrong times for the 1000's. They were 3:17-3:20, not 2:17-2:20.

February

Wow, can't believe it's February, already. A few weeks ago I began working out on the indoor track at the university of Washington. It is amazingly convenient for me as it is less than 1 mile away. Two Mondays ago was my first real workout and was 5 x 800 with 2-3 min rest (can't remember exactly). I was really slow (2:34-2:48) but it was nice to be inside wearing shorts and racing flats. I tried to not think about my slow times because I knew it was the first workout and I have a long time to get where I want. Last Monday, I ran 6 x 1000m with 3 min rest. I was able to run with Mike Bailey which really helped. He ran with me for the whole workout and we took turns leading each interval. We were pretty consistent hitting 2:17-2:20 on all of them. I think Mike could have run faster and held back for me, but it was greatly appreciated as I was about maxed out. It was very encouraging though because we were at about the same pace I was running the 800's the week before.

I've been back in the pool 2 times each week as well. It is brutal to get out of bed at 5:20am, but once I'm in the water I'm really happy. I am a little tired during the day and find myself ready for bed by 9pm. Which is good as I need to get to bed early in order to get up to swim. Just a little hard to get back in that routine after a relaxing November and December.

Cycling is feeling good, but always hard to know where my fitness is when I'm spinning inside. I did ride outside one beautiful day for about 2 hours and that felt great. I've been riding 2-3x/week for 1-2 hours. This morning I rode the Ironman Couer d'Alene course (on the Computrainer) for just over 2 hours, then ran an easy 20 min with Jackson. He can't run very fast or long so I like doing some of these short early season transition runs with him.

On other indoor track news, my Nittany Lions are posting some great marks with two guys running 4:01 and 4:06 in the mile. Hopefully, the team will have a great showing at Big 10's.