Sunday Run and other stuff

Went out for a run today as there was no Sunday swim scheduled. Wanted to play with all my new gear...new running coat, new mits, new long underwear and of course my garmin. It was minus 20 degrees outside today. But got a solid 50 minutes in. I even installed my garmin software and downloaded all the info. Really neat!! Shows the map with the route that I ran, you can plot just about any set of data you want to...HR, pace, elevation, distance, grade etc. Not sure what it all means so I will send it to JP and let him tell me. I also figured out how to turn the back light on. I have to say that as much as this thing does a couple of things I have noticed, the HR info is in very small numbers and difficult to read. There must be a way to make that info bigger. The wrist part is really big on my arm and I have to put it over my jacket as it was too cold to have any bare skin exposed. The dials are too small to press with my mits on and I did not dare take them off so I had to live with the display that I went out with. I guess once I have more specific workouts, I will hopefully have the forward thinking to get it set up to give me the information I want. Mondays are my rest day because most all of my training is going to take place in the mornings and I have an 8:00am meeting every monday and just do not have the time to get anything in on Mondays. So Tuesday is a 45 minute bike doing a few sets of the "Muscle Tension" drill (?), Wednesday and Thursdays are run days this week, Friday is a core workout, Saturday is an hour on the bike and Sunday swim. Looking forward to it!!

Not so bad, not so bad...

Got my first few weeks of training yesterday. Very manageable in my opinion. I knew it was coming but was ignoring it...lots of biking!! And lots of biking drills. I have been studying the videos on the Carmichael website to make sure I have a handle on what I am trying to do. In fact, my first 45 minutes is on January 1, good thing I have no New Year's plans, might as well start it off on my bike. Kind of ironic, don't you think? I need to ask JP if he did that on purpose...I also got a long and detailed e-mail about why I was doing the specific workouts and how they are supposed to work together over the course of the week. ie. my legs will be tired and my runs are only for general fitness right now. Don't worry about doing them fast, "Just get out there and do them". Did I mention JP is very direct? No softy there. Work hard on this one, don't worry too much about HR on that one. Interesting!! I have not known there to be method to this, but it makes total sense now.

Conversation with Justin

I just spent the last hour on the phone with Justin. My head is full of information. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, actually. But not panicking...yet. Basically, I have my work cut out for me! We laid down the basics and timelines and scheduling etc. We set some preliminary goals which were kind of fun because even though we have only chatted this once, he sounds like he really believes in me. As I guess he should, as I am PAYING him!! He was quite honest in that he said he would be pushing me to see what I am capable of. He wants me to download my Garmin to him every week so he can analyse the data...I didn't mention that I have yet to figure out how to turn the light on so I can see the numbers in the dark. So downloading data might take me a bit!! I was playing with my cell phone this week and see that my total usage minutes since I got it in August are a whopping 32 minutes!! Technology and me do not see eye to eye. Anyway, I should have the next month's training plan here shortly, will keep you posted!!

Holy...I am EXCITED!!

I just got my first e-mail from my coach, Justin. And this is what he says...the red are my thoughts....

"From what I have read about you it looks like swimming is under control already, your running distance is good but you need to boost your speed a bit (duh wrt to my running), and that you need to work on cycling most (really??) of all in order to help you reach your long term goal of an IM event in the not so distant future (I told him I wanted to do an Ironman within 3 years..is this not so distant?). The good news is that the bike is the easiest area to improve and I will make sure to focus much of your training time and intensity on the bike (my ass hurts just thinking about this!!). It won’t take long for you to feel faster and more confident on the bike! (I think Justin is a bit of a dreamer...)"

But I think I like him already!!

Sunday Swim

Just back from my Sunday swim and finishing my shopping for Christmas...a bit more on that later. I wasn't going to go to swimming today as I thought it most likely would be a bunch of easy stuff and drills with many people being out of town and families getting together for the holiday. I talked myself into it, thinking it would be nice to get a few laps in, stretch out the muscles etc. Oh boy, was I wrong!! We did a warm-up and then some fast 25 meters and the main set was a Beat the Clock set for 100s. The jist was to have the leave times increase by 5 seconds...so start on 2:00 min and then 2:05, 2:10 etc. Then your pace time was to decrease by 5 seconds...so 2:00min then 1:55, 1:50 etc. We were getting more rest every 100 but had to swim faster to beat the clock and as soon as you didn't beat the clock, you were out. It is amazing that the faster we went, how it felt like we weren't getting enough rest!! When it was all said and done, I got down to 1:18, so I made the 1:20 pace time but seriously, that was ALL I HAD!! And it was at the end of about 6 100s.!! My legs were friggin tingling and I couldn't catch my breath after that one. Only one other person did a 1:15 so I was pretty happy to be the second last swimmer out.
As for the shopping, the new adidas outlet store opened up this week. Yep, Saskatoon has an outlet store!! This is something new for us. So in I go, and out I come with a very cool track suit....Yes a TRACK SUIT! I have not had one of these in many years. And just for fun, I bought a tee shirt that says "I make it look easy"...a bit of attitude never hurts.