2K/1K/2x500

I have forgotten to mention how glorious the weather has been the past couple of days. It was nice and warm on Thursday for my 15K (42F, 6C) and calm. Yesterday it got up to 70F (21C) in the afternoon, and it was sunny and just SO wonderful. This morning it was incredibly warm...hmmm, suspiciously warm, at 56F (13C). When it's that warm in the morning at this time of year, it's the "warm before the storm" and sure enough it will snow. Yup, tonight it is to be windy with 1 to 3 inches of snow, and a low of 33F (1C). I'm hoping it won't stick much to the road so I can do my 15K in the morning, but it might be icky enough that I wait to do it until the afternoon tomorrow, when the snow is supposed to stop and it's going to be about 40F (4C).

Enough of the weather report. Suffice it to say that it was NICE this morning. I even got up a little late (for me) and didn't get over to the track until about 7:30. It was light out (instead of pitch black like at 6 am when I usually work out) and even (gasp!) sunny! The cloud cover came in during the workout, presaging the storm later tonight. Anyway, I warmed up with a brisk 1600m in 10:11. I enjoyed passing the one runner on the track :). Then I did some dynamic flexibility drills, trying to loosen up my still sore hamstrings.

I got started on my 2K. I was planning on about 1:08/200m to give me an 11:40 (5:50/k); I figured I could do that. But I was pushing hard this morning and I was even faster! Yay! I got to 1K in 5:42, and then pulled out the second 1K in 5:48 for an 11:30! I was really pleased - if I'm in good shape, I can do several 2Ks at 11:30. I'm sure I would not have been able to do several at that speed (yet!), but I was happy to do one that fast to start. I had a 4 min rest, and my HR only got down to the low 120s. If I'm in really good shape, it will get below 120 in that time. Oh well. Moving on, I did my 1K, hoping for under 5:45. I worked it very hard, and got a 5:42! Then I had a 3 minute rest. During that rest, an elderly man arrived at the track, and I recognized him from last summer. His name is Gordon, and he does the Senior Olympics a lot, and he is training for 9 track and field events in Mesquite, NV, next week. He was quite complimentary on my racewalking, and I enjoyed chatting with him for a few minutes before I had to go again. I was hoping for low 2:50s for the 500s, since I was pre-fatigued, but I surprised myself, pulling out a 2:48 on the first one. After 2 min rest (where my HR barely dipped below 130...yeah, still out of shape), I really wanted to go even faster on the last one. I knew it would be close, and I sprinted the last 100m in only 30 sec (!) to get a 2:47. Yeah, pretty much gave it my all on that one, with HR 176 at the end. I was glad to be done. Whew.

Some fast times for my current state of not-quite-in-shape, but they need to be a lot faster by this summer. We'll get there. I just have to do each workout well and then the rest is not really up to me, but up to my body. I'm just going to do all I can do to make each one good.

Garmin connect data here.

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OK, now for the crazy part. Immediately after I finished this workout, I drove straight over to the gym for a Pilates class. I figured I could always skip stuff if it hurt too much. The Saturday class has a different instructor and it's a bit easier than the Tu/Th class, but it was still tough after a hard workout. I'm glad I did it, though. I managed to do just about everything, despite the pre-fatiguing of the hard track workout. Whew.

Total for the week (Sun-Sat): 3 weight training workouts, 3 Pilates workouts, 2 spinning workouts, and 5 racewalking workouts totaling 48.2 km (30 miles). Not bad. Not bad at all. I'm on track to get in the best shape that I can.

In other good news, the eating has been better this week, especially the last few days. The scale said 150.2 lb (68.2 kg) this morning, down from 155 (70.5 kg) around the time of my miscarriage. Good...it's moving in the right direction. Now to lose another 5 lb or so of unneeded rear-end fat.