Thursday, July 16, 2015

more cross-training; 5K fartlek

It's been one heck of a week. Work has been crazy; lots of experiments, a graduate student in our lab had a dissertation defense, SDB was last weekend so very little rest. Personal life has been crazy (example: washing machine broke last night; piano getting repaired today; Grace had a doctor appt yesterday that didn't happen because we got scheduled with a doc who doesn't do kids (they couldn't figure this out on the phone?!?)). Not enough sleep.

Yesterday I was supposed to do the 5K fartlek that I didn't do Tuesday. Well, it didn't happen, mostly because work and personal life took over. I had to drive a cake up to the lab before working out, and got up too late because I was too tired from all the other stuff I did on Tuesday (much running around and errands and kid stuff). I'm not one to make excuses. I know if I want to be competitive I have to prioritize training, but I'm also a mom and a lab manager, and sometimes life happens. I'm trying not to STRESS about it because that makes things much worse. So yesterday I just did the elliptical and that was the way it went. On the way out of the gym a guy said, "there goes the walker!" and smiled at me. I felt so lame for not doing my 5K fartlek then! I was thinking I wasn't much of a walker...but then I reminded myself that life happens and that I need to not stress.

Today I made up for all of that. I was up until midnight trying to get the washing machine to limp through the last few loads of laundry (ugh!) and then woke up BOING! at 5:30 wide awake. Crap. Too much on my mind. So I figured I would go do the 5K fartlek. Why not? I had time. So off I went to the gym.

I did an unremarkable warm-up 5 laps in 9:17 with the last lap a nice fast 1:41, alternating slow and fast bursts. After some dynamic stretching I started the workout. Remember, this is at the indoor 292.6m track, as pretty much all of my speed work is right now (and that's working out just fine, though I do wish I could work out outside when the weather is as nice as it is now in the mornings). When I got going, I felt good and did well :). My total time was 29:32 for 17 laps (4974m) which equals 29:41 for 5000m. Not fast in comparison to what I used to do or in comparison to what my competition is doing...BUT for now it's awesome. I'm just happy to be under 30 min for a fartlek in my current shape.

Even better, my medium effort intervals were faster than they have been, and that's where the increase came from. I'm apparently in OK shape; just need to get some leg speed back. The 17 laps are 4x(2 fast, 2 medium) and 1 fast. The 500m equivalent times for those are 2:52.0, 3:02.8, 2:53.3, 3:04.3, 2:52.9, 3:04.3, 2:54.6, 3:05.4, 2:50.5. Like I said, my fasts were not so fast, but at least the medium effort intervals are improving.

Average HR was 159, max 170, and 2 min recovery 124. That all seems very typical for this workout,  which is great. Hoping the evil mystery illness stays away for a long time.

Garmin data here. 

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