Homestar Running (and biking)

Monday, 6 April
Reconnected with the team today, which was awesome. We did a short little hybrid of Palomar/Huntington, but we didn't run super easy.

Tuesday, 7 April
Rode down to SB on the Waterford. Rode really easy, it took a little less than 8 hours ride-time. Ian joined me for the first few hours on the river trail, which made the going a lot easier. I remembered from the last time feeling like the day was very looong - like a long time to be in my own head. But, this time I felt much better. Partially because the weather was nicer, partially because of the company, and partially because I knew the route. The fact that it was an hour shorter ride also wasn't a bad thing! Anyways, after not touching a bike for 5-6 weeks to be able to do that ride was a good feeling.

It was nice to get a good meal from my mom when I arrived, and to see my parents was really great. My dad said my quads looked good in my biking shorts! (I pointed out that I got them from him - he works out at the gym a couple of times a week and has awesome natural quads, with the split down the middle! And he's only 65! )

Wednesday, 8 April
Decided to take it easy today, so I swam for 30 minutes. It was actually pretty fun! I like the new bathing suit (one piece). It was also nice to get some good lap-swimming tips from Justine.

Actually, I feel a lot better today after my big ride than I did the last time I did this ride. I wonder why? Maybe those extra 15 miles really did something to me last time, or the stress of not knowing the route, or something. But last time I remember being tired, hungry, and sore. Today, I felt good actually. None of those things in particular.

Thursday, 9 April
Ran down Lacy with the team, and did some quicker stuff (5 minutes at maybe 7:00 pace, a couple of 200s) but mostly just jogged on the grass in order to let my legs continue to recover from Tuesday, and to prepare for a big workout date with the Doyle lab tomorrow.

Friday, 10 April
Computrainer workout. 3 on 1 off increasing the on @25W from 150 to 225W, then 2 on 1 off at 250, 275, and 1 on 1 off at 300W. Then 4 intervals to failure, averaging maybe a minute or two somewhere ramping up or ramping down around 275 (max 325W). Felt really crappy during this part - my body is not used to intervals at all! Then staircase down with 3 on 1 off from 175W down to 100 watts.

The point of this workout was to get my blood oxygen saturation levels. I wore a pulse oximeter on my finger (which was a little bit of a burden, since I had to keep my hand relaxed to get a good reading, which meant that I couldn't grab the bars on the failure intervals). Note, the best reading was from my right index finger.

If I was sitting and chilling, the reading was 98%. During riding, it would fluctuate; during an interval it was mostly between 94 and 96%, and during rest it would first dip below its "on" level and then rebound up to 96-97 or even 98%. The lowest it got was 89% (Dan said this was the lowest reading he'd seen). I wish I understood why it got lower after I stopped the interval - I guess my muscles were in oxygen debt and would suck it all up or something?

So yeah, this was pretty intense. It's going to be awesome when we get the gas exchange setup!

Saturday, 11 April
Got about 5 hours of sleep after drinking wine all night, then got up to go for a run with Susan. Not a recipe for a good workout, necessarily, but I decided to jump in anyways. The plan was to run to 35 minutes hard; we did 10 minutes warmup and then stepped it up (I was feeling pretty gross). Route. We were conversational but hard until about Lacy park, when we picked it up. 30 minutes in, we got to the bottom of Old Mill and Oak Knoll. Susan said we'd go up to Hillcrest, and we started up the hill. I was really feeling badly at this point, but I looked at my watch and I thought, well, 5 more minutes... so I pushed through the hill, and crested up the top, and counted down the seconds.... at 35 minutes we were at Hillcrest & Hillcrest Pl (25 minutes in @ 3.5mi) and I was on my very last bit of juice.

At this point, it occured to me that maybe Susan had meant 35 minutes tempo - not 35 minutes total - and that we might actually have 10 more minutes to go! I pleaded inside my head for Susan to look down at her watch... but no such luck. I barely managed to get out the words "Do we have 10 more minutes?!", to which, of course, she said yes.

I thought I was going to die.

I can't remember the last time I felt this bad in a run - it was like the feeling I get towards the end of a 1500 race or a 600-800 track interval where my vision was tunneling in, I was dizzy (kind of like 2 Wednesdays ago at the track but not quite as bad), my stomach was churning, my breathing was irregular, and I had a cold sweat. It was bad news bears. Usually when I get this, I just keep telling myself, "I only have to endure this for 60 more seconds", except this time instead of 60 seconds, it was 10 minutes.

So I had a freak out and Susan helpfully pointed out that our breathing was matched - first time for everything I suppose - so I tried to stop complaining. I just took it one minute at a time. Soon we had 7 minutes left, then 5, at which point I thought "okay, this would be 1200m left". The fact that it was flat was really helpful actually. When we got to Arden @ Wilson, I insisted we go straight - I just could not face the uphill. That's how bad it was.

I literally could not believe that I made it that far after I felt SO bad with 10 minutes to go. It just shows that I don't usually push myself hard enough! Because I DID make it, and we did over 5 miles in that 35 minutes. So if this mapping was right, we were pulling 7 minute miles on varied terrain (downhill at the beginning, uphill in the middle). Any thoughts on what this would be equivalent to on the track? I would guess at least 6.45s. It was hard.

What a hard workout - and a good opportunity. I got to overcome a really difficult mental spot, do my longest tempo run in a while, rock out with Susan, and all after only 5 hours of sleep, a hard workout the day before (on the bike), and lots of beverages the night before. Yessss.

Sunday, 12 April
Tired today from another long night out on the town. (I gotta train for this.) It was really nice today, and I kept meaning to take Jamaal 2.0 out for a ride, but I didn't get around to it. In the end I decided another day off would be good for me, because I'm going to have a high volume week next week in the 505.