Waterfalls

Monday, November 17, 2008

Happy Birthday Drew!

Hubby is now "in his 40's"... so I got him a nice new toy for his birthday!

Had a really light training week last week. I feel somehwat bouncy, but also very soft. We're going through a spate of really nice weather in Colorado (going to be 76 tomorrow!!!) which coincides nicely with picking back up the training this week... not oodles of distance but definitely hitting all three sports a bit each day and sharpening up the intenisty.

Drew is racing IM Az this weekend... time to qualify for Kona for next season. Think fast thoughts his way, especially ones dealing with running later on Sunday afternoon!

2 weeks until the season is officially over! I'm ready to bring it!

Leslie

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

All ready to go!

Weekend after this Drew is racing IM Az, and then two days later we are on a plane to Hawaii!!!! YIKES and YEAH!!!!!!

I've put in the miles, my head is in the right place, and I'm ready to go!!! I'm still a bit too serious about this, need to reach that place emotionally where it really is about going to play with my friends but I think that is coming. I've been pretty wiped out the past few weeks, and last weekend we put the cherry on top of the training sundae.

Saturday's Rim Rock Run race went quite well! The distance was 1.6 miles longer than I thought so it was 22.6 miles. Drew "ran" the race with me and we stayed solidly on strategy, and felt pretty good throughout it. The first 4 miles was tough (2300ft of climbing in 4 miles) but I did my run 4 and walk 2 and that worked well. I was always happy to hear the watch beep to walk, but I did not walk any of the run sections. The next 4miles were still uphill, but an easier grade and we stuck to the 4/2 and used this to recover a bit. At mile 8 the course turned to long rollers, more down than up. We switched to 8 min run/2min walk and that worked pretty good too. There were still some uphills and I struggled to make the 8 minutes a few times, but managed it. Once we went downhill at mile 19 I ran really easy, but kept the 2 minutes walk to try to minimize post-race aches in my quads/hamstrings.

In the end we finished in 4:47, a 12:42 per mile pace. I was not whupped at the finish and could have kept going at that pace for quite awhile more. I feel like I could have run this race much faster, but the goal was to feel like I could keep going at the finish and I definitely did. That pace would have given me a 5:30 marathon, or a 11:00 finish at Ultraman (assuming I could keep it up).

All in all it was a solid indicator and as we walked the mile back to the car we were talking about it pretty giddily. I'm glad I ran this race because I now feel like I am ready.

Coach is giving me the next 4 days really light and then it's short interval workouts until race day… Sweet! Time to rest, recover, and get ready to play...

One day at a time...
Leslie