Thursday, May 17, 2012

3x1km @ 85% effort

More video today. It's helping, though. I walk a lap, look at the video, adjust, walk another lap, etc. I am sure I will be legal for the race now, but the question is how fast will I be?

Today I did the 3x1km. It was nice at the track: 57F (14C) and sunny and clear. This time I remembered to set up the camera OPPOSITE the sun so that you can see better.

My warm-up was better today. I was legal by the end of the first 400m. The second 400m was iffy, but then I was fine on the 3rd and 4th warm-up laps. Total time for all 4 laps was 9:28, though I stopped in between each one to check the video briefly.

I really worked on straightening up today - my coach said if I didn't lean so much from the waist/hips that it would help. I felt a LOT better and much smoother, and it looks better too, I think. It's still not perfect...tuck my butt under, keep the right hip low as I bring it through, stay straighter, etc. However, I was encouraged by two things 1) I was a bit faster today, and 2) I felt smoother and stronger and able to push a bit harder and know that I was still legal. The hours spent poring over video are paying off I think. I hope.

Split times: 1st km was 2:43, 2:46; 2nd was 2:44, 2:45; 3rd was 2:46, 2:46. I will admit that it was more like a 90% effort than an 85% effort, but my heart rate was not too high. It averaged 156, 161, and 162 on the 2nd 500m of each of the 1km intervals.

Here's the video:



Garmin data here.


***

I'm feeling better about the race now. I think I was much more illegal on my warm-ups than I ever was while doing the interval workouts over the past few weeks. I suspect that some of my fitness gains are real, and so hopefully I'll at least be able to get the All-American Masters standard for my age group, which is 1:26:37. If I have a bad day on race day all bets are off, but if not, it should be attainable.

No comments: