Yesterday was a rest day and I managed to get a wonderful, leisurely evening nap after work and before I went out to choir practice. The evening ended up being a combination of loud karaoke, tylenol and sugary sorbet and for a hyperactive person that resulted in me not exactly sleeping much.
I woke up this morning after very little sleep, not tired but not exactly refreshed. I've had problems with insomnia for years so my body is used to very little sleep. If I was physically tired I would have skipped today's speedwork but I felt pretty good so I hopped out of bed at 6AM ready for another training session.
I really wasn't hungry this morning and I wanted to get to the track by 7AM. Since the rule is that I need to wait at least an hour before running after a mini-meal, today's breakfast of choice was a smoothie. One can generally run 30 minutes after a liquid breakfast.
Banana, cherry and oat smoothie with whey protein and about 1 tbsp pecans.
Today, just like last Sunday, was speedwork so I headed out to the track again to do my first session of 'Yasso's 800s'.
This was similar to last week's only that I would be running 800 meters 7 times, trying to make my best time as possible. The running would be just like my last hard tempo run. The agenda was, warm up for 10 minutes, run seven intervals of 800 meters taking half the time that it took me to complete the interval to recover. (So if I ran 800 meters in five minutes I would get to rest for 2.5 minutes before I ran another 800 meters).
The track was a bit busier today as there were some men being trained as referees. I stopped to watch them doing their flag drills just before I started my stretch. I had on my heart rate monitor again today and I warmed up at an easy 140 or so bpm (beats per minute). Then came the speedwork. I gunned it around the track for the first interval. My heart rate monitor was showing a flashing 194 bpm by the time I had reached the 200m mark. I didn't feel like I had pushed myself any insane amount until I had to try and do it again 1.75 or so minutes later.
The second interval was not as fast at the first but by the third I was wondering if I could really do all seven. I think I graced myself with a sliiightly longer recovery time than half of my intervals but I figured if that's what it took to complete today's task then so be it. I could feel that I wasn't my strongest today though and it's simply from lack of sleep. I really need to wise up and not stay out late when I know I have such an early rise to train. Oh well.
I made it in the end. I approached the seventh interval with great relief since by this point I was really starting to feel each lap. One thing about running though is that you have to discipline yourself to push through such discomfort. You don't run on a sprained ankle but when you feel like you want to cop out before the finish you have to remind yourself that you can do this....because you can. Its hard work but this is how you find out what you are made of. You may surprise yourself.
I ran my last 800m as fast as I could (which still wasn't as fast as the first) but when I reached the last 100m mark nearing the end of the last lap I thought, 'Okay...we have to at least beat your last interval time...' and I ran like my underwear caught on fire until I made it over the finish line, my heart rate monitor happily beeping away, telling me what was painfully apparent to me by the third interval: I was definitely working over 180 bpm. I looked down and was shocked to see that in my last sprint I got up to 202 bpm. So I now know my maximum heart rate is higher than the standard 200 bpm.
I walked a recovery lap which felt more like a victory lap and then slowly jogged two more to cool down. In my cool down jog I was joined by a gentleman who works for FIFA and he was curious about my training. I actually bought it for a moment that he was interested in my running times but it turned out that the only numbers he was really after were my age and phone number. He was nice enough to at least glance at my interval times and make a few kind remarks. :P Oh well...I'm not exactly on the road to be discovered as a track star or anything so what do I really expect? :P There was also an annoying amount of girl and boy scouts on the track blocking my way during the last quarter of my session. Some of the girls were even so irksome as to walk linked arm in arm across the track in a red rover line and I had to keep asking them to move to the side of the track. This annoyed me because the added effort of talking constantly during the speedwork had me feeling a little more out of breath than I liked. Oh well...I can securely say that I did my best.
My interval times were pretty good considering:
1st 800m: 00:03:21
2nd 800m: 00:03:31
3rd 800m: 00:03:37
4th 800m: 00:03:37
5th 800m: 00:03:44
6th 800m: 00:03:41
7th 800m: 00:03:39
Next time I am going to aim to get all of them below 00:03:30.
After getting yelled at for asking the man in the truck who hemmed me into my parking spot to kindly move, I made my way home and crashed out on my bed for an hour. I had already had my protein shake so I wasn't hungry. I still had a lot to do today so I could only afford an hour's rest before I got up and ate another mid-morning, mini meal. I still wasn't really hungry but I wasn't about to go out for a couple hours and risk feeling faint so I made it another light one.
Banana, peaches and yogurt with Japanese green tea.
The next stop was church. Its important to me to make sure that even though I am putting all of this time and effort into training that I still remember to make time for my source of real strength. Its so easy to get consumed in all of these fitness regimes and think you're a superhero because of all that you are physically achieving. The thing is, I know that I wouldn't have the strength to do any of this without my faith...so if I can drag myself out on a track after three hours sleep, I can go at attend mass after four hours sleep. But the deacon did take too long during the homily so I left early but yeah...its the thought that counts.
After: some more racing around and a quick lunch.
Brown rice stir fry with red beans, carrots, parsnips, spinach, lentils and egg whites.
No I did not eat the plant.
Then I had to hightail it down to a promotional photo shoot for choir where we all parked up on the side of a hill by the sea with a FANTASTIC view and did some small group shots and then everyone joined together. Part of the charm of the photo was that there was to be lovely uncut grass blowing in the breeze around us. I happened to miss this memo and still had a bit of a run-buzz and was unabashedly hyper. Once our group shot was taken I made the mistake to trudge up the hill through the grass in the frame making a neat little Anna trail through the untouched grass. Sin of sins. The photographer looked like he wanted to roll me down the side of the hill. Whoops! I was wondering why everyone was going up the long way...
Needless to say I calmed down a bit after that. Shame is a wonderful sedative!
The view!!
Then this photoshoot made me shamefully late for work which I rushed to at warp speed and is where you find me now, rather tired, contacts dry and sticking to my eyeballs and ever so slightly groggy. Okay who am I kidding...I'm grogzilla. So tired right now. Can't wait to go home and sleep!
Tomorrow...day six!
Also...my nail is bruised from my shoe and I am worried that I may lose it! The nail is short as it is so I don't know if cutting it any shorter will help. Ugh, it's like ballet all over again! I wonder if I wear my old gel toe pads from ballet if that will help...I think it may mess up my stride though. Pooh. Will have to keep a close eye on that or start shining up all my closed in shoes!
Week two almost over already...wow.
After getting yelled at for asking the man in the truck who hemmed me into my parking spot to kindly move, I made my way home and crashed out on my bed for an hour. I had already had my protein shake so I wasn't hungry. I still had a lot to do today so I could only afford an hour's rest before I got up and ate another mid-morning, mini meal. I still wasn't really hungry but I wasn't about to go out for a couple hours and risk feeling faint so I made it another light one.
Banana, peaches and yogurt with Japanese green tea.
The next stop was church. Its important to me to make sure that even though I am putting all of this time and effort into training that I still remember to make time for my source of real strength. Its so easy to get consumed in all of these fitness regimes and think you're a superhero because of all that you are physically achieving. The thing is, I know that I wouldn't have the strength to do any of this without my faith...so if I can drag myself out on a track after three hours sleep, I can go at attend mass after four hours sleep. But the deacon did take too long during the homily so I left early but yeah...its the thought that counts.
After: some more racing around and a quick lunch.
Brown rice stir fry with red beans, carrots, parsnips, spinach, lentils and egg whites.No I did not eat the plant.
Then I had to hightail it down to a promotional photo shoot for choir where we all parked up on the side of a hill by the sea with a FANTASTIC view and did some small group shots and then everyone joined together. Part of the charm of the photo was that there was to be lovely uncut grass blowing in the breeze around us. I happened to miss this memo and still had a bit of a run-buzz and was unabashedly hyper. Once our group shot was taken I made the mistake to trudge up the hill through the grass in the frame making a neat little Anna trail through the untouched grass. Sin of sins. The photographer looked like he wanted to roll me down the side of the hill. Whoops! I was wondering why everyone was going up the long way...
Needless to say I calmed down a bit after that. Shame is a wonderful sedative!
The view!!Then this photoshoot made me shamefully late for work which I rushed to at warp speed and is where you find me now, rather tired, contacts dry and sticking to my eyeballs and ever so slightly groggy. Okay who am I kidding...I'm grogzilla. So tired right now. Can't wait to go home and sleep!
Tomorrow...day six!
Also...my nail is bruised from my shoe and I am worried that I may lose it! The nail is short as it is so I don't know if cutting it any shorter will help. Ugh, it's like ballet all over again! I wonder if I wear my old gel toe pads from ballet if that will help...I think it may mess up my stride though. Pooh. Will have to keep a close eye on that or start shining up all my closed in shoes!
Week two almost over already...wow.
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