rest days; 6K; 5x1K

I'm baaaaack from my evil cold!

OK, so very few people noticed I was gone :). Nyle did...thanks for the FB chat last night! This morning at the track (getting ahead of myself) I thought of Nyle and imagined her cheering me on, as I knew she would have had she been here. It's like having a virtual training partner. We live across the planet from each other, and we are very different, yet our love of racewalking and passion for the sport and determination to live life with enthusiasm despite the roadblocks brings us together. I look forward to seeing her in Perth next fall (spring for them) for WMA!

So after Monday's very tired 6K, I woke feeling even MORE lousy on Tuesday, because I'd overdone it on Monday. So I took the day off, listening to my body and respecting it. This is something I've learned the hard way over the past two years of illness, but I think it holds true even when not ill. Patience in the short term yields better results - rest now, train when ready. On Tuesday afternoon while setting up fish crosses, I was so very tired and weak that I had to sit down as much as possible, which is not normal for me at all. So I decided to take Wednesday as a rest day too. By Wednesday night I was feeling better, and figured I'd try for 8K on Thursday. 

Thursday morning I got up and dressed for racewalking, because I was feeling good. I wore the usual spring garb of a long-sleeved shirt, tights, gloves, headband, headlamp, reflective vest, pepper spray. Geez, by the time I get dressed it feels like a marathon effort ;). Sugar was so glad that I was finally going to take her for a walk, poor doggie. You'd think someone else in our house might walk the dog...sigh...but I digress. I walked out the door and noticed that 1) it was windy, and 2) it was raining a bit. Drat. So I walked inside and switched my headband out for a baseball cap and grabbed a jacket. I was glad I did because it was chilly at 36F (2.2C) and with the wind it was definitely the biting kind of chilly. Finally, I started walking and felt a lot better than Monday, but still not 100%. By 3K I was a bit tired and decided that 6K was enough for how I was feeling. I finished in 39:20 for 6:33/kmwith ave HR 151 (vs Monday’s 155…better…still high for the speed, but better).

Thursday I felt decent all day, and no weird soreness or unusual fatigue, other than the cold, which was a lot better. Just some sniffling and general congestion remained.

This morning I felt so good when I woke up, partly because I was going to take the day off work; it’s Good Friday and the end of spring break for the kids, and I want to spend time with Grace (Loren and Calvin went to Mesa Verde National Park for a boys’ weekend). But my cold is also better, and my legs feel GOOD. YES! I can’t tell you how strange and wonderful it is to feel good for a change. After two years of not feeling good and dreading workouts, it’s so odd to actually think that a workout might go well, and to maybe think about possibly enjoying it.

It was chilly again this morning at about 36F (2.2C) but not nearly so windy; still breezy at 10kph (6mph) but definitely tolerable. Because I took the day off work, I got to go a bit later to the track, and the sun was just coming up as I arrived. I had a good warm-up, doing 1600m with strides in 10:02. Did some dynamic stretching and then got started.

The 1km intervals felt good, and Jim gave me 3 minutes rest in between each :). You can’t tell from my times that they felt good; they got slower as I went, though maybe you can tell from the last three, which were at least consistent. My legs are obviously still tired from the illness – I could feel my muscles fatiguing sooner than they normally would – but somehow I still had strength and even though I was slower there was no weird soreness and mentally I stayed in the workout. Part of it was that after each interval I could hear my friend Nyle saying, “Great job – you’re going to nail this workout”, and I started to tell myself that, and believe it. So my last interval actually was pretty good at 5:45.5. Yeah, I know these are A LOT slower than what I used to do. But it's a great start.

Interval times: 5:40.6, 5:43.9, 5:47.0, 5:46.9, 5:45.5

Total time: 28:43.9 for the 5K. Well...for intervals...kinda slow. But I'll more than take it if I continue to feel good and can train. I will get faster :).

Garmin data here.