As you can see by the picture, today was an absolutely gorgeous day. Temperatures were about -5 Celcius and there was a slight wind from the northwest. The sun was shining brightly on the mountains and I chose to stay on roads today for a change.
The workout of the day was a tempo run with a mile warmup and cooldown sandwiching 6 miles of brisk running. My warmup mile was actually faster than it should have been, but I was excited to be on the roads with good solid footing. Mile one was a quick 6:30 pace. What the heck I am warmed up now so I proceeded to maintain around that pace for the prescribed 6 mile tempo portion with the following results
Mile 2 - 6:53 due to a bit of a hill
Miles 3 and 4 - 6:35 - nice flat stretch of good gravel road
Mile 5 - 6:40 - working hard but heart rate was still only 145 bpm
Mile 6 - 6:45 - slowing up a bit but still feeling good
Mile 7 - 6:58 - starting to feel this......
Mile 8 - 7:04 - cool down, but probably still a little too fast
Final tally for the day 8.2 miles, 55:34, average 6:46/mi and an average heart rate 140 bpm. Very satisfied with that workout after a solid day yesterday.
Friday's workouts consisted of 2,200 metre swim in just about 50 minutes. Focus was on good body rotation and finding the balance "sweet spot". A little bit of focus was on the lady in the next lane who obviously got some sweet water proof iPod device for Christmas. One more thing to put on my list of gadgets that I need!
In the evening I got on the bike for an aerobic ride of 29.15 miles. Lots of gear changes as I was riding to the Tucson virtual ride of Gate's Pass. Managed to keep a good average cadence of 90 RPM and an average speed of 20.32 MPH. I am really enjoying the Spinerval DVD's. It makes the time go by quickly and it is good to be reminded of keeping a good form and watching your cadence. On the bike you can quickly drift off and lose focus before you know it. These DVDs are helpful training aids.
I have made it through the worst part of the holiday season and have maintained a pretty good level of training. The tough stuff is still ahead, the 3,000 metre plus swims and the 5 hour rides, but there is lots of time until April and I have a good solid base to build on.
Have a great day!
1 comment:
Great run Garry, weather sure beats ours. We have that much snow in July????? Why wait for next Christmas for that sweet ipods, birthday very close Angela ?????
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