Great run!

The spin yesterday afternoon was very ho-hum. No point blogging about it. My heart wasn't in it at all. Got on the bike, did a nice spin fairly easy, for an hour. That's all there is.

The swim today is a different story. My inner shark came out to play, big time! I got there, and there's hardly anyone in the pool. I had one of the fast lanes all to myself. How sweet it is! Did a short warm up, and a bunch of drill. Greg had some 200 m intervals for me, slow, medium, and fast. I got started on these, and two swimmers joined my lane. One is the thrashy slow one that takes 37 strokes to go 25 m. The other was with her, but I'd never seen her before. Beautiful arm stroke, and I think she can swim much faster, but she drafted off the other girl. If drafted is the right word for going that slow. And for a while, we had yet another person in the lane.

It turned into a bit of a zoo. At just the right time I got stuck behind and couldn't pass, just when I was due for a slow anyway, so that was ok. But then, rather than rest, I was ready to keep going. I didn't want to lose my spot in rotation with all the swimmers, and my inner shark was loving swimming right up to their feet, and bursting past when I had the opportunity. It turned into about 35 minutes of hard swim, with some easier bits thrown in.

The exciting bit is that the slow thrashy one has no sense of pool timing. The two girls are periodically stopping at the other end, and deciding what the next thing is. I'm doing a fairly quick pace, coming into the wall. I'm just about to grab the wall and turn, and she pushes off. If I had pushed off like I normally do it would have been pornographic. It turns out that she's putting everything into it, totally all out. I wanted to pass, but didn't want to go into overdrive to do it. I pushed down at my fast pace, and was slightly ahead of her at the other wall. She turned like she normally does, veering into me as I was tucking up for my turn. I pushed off anyway. At the other end I walked into her path to make her stop, and suggested to her that it was bad form to push off right in front of someone that you know swims faster, and that you have to be aware of where people are before you change lanes like that. Her buddy pulled up, and said she'd explain to her. I carried on.

Finished off the main set, feeling strong and smooth. Did some more drill. Tried some golf sets, and it's still not what I'd like, but I'm getting back into the groove. I've still got a bit of a cough happening, but my lungs are pretty well back to normal. Did some core work in the dive tank. Swim was 1 hour.

Puttered about at home for a bit, then dressed for a run. I was a bit nervous about this. Firstly, I wanted to wear shorts, and a t shirt, and the weather was just a bit iffy. The first third of the run was a bit cool because of the wind, but the rest was fine. Greg scheduled a 15/1 run with the 15 min at my goal race pace for the Police Half. I don't really have a goal race pace. This is to find out what my race pace actually is. And even if I knew the pace, I don't have a Garmin to find out if I'm doing that pace. I ran from here, up the 37st path, turning left to go toward the Weaselhead, and turning around just past the little bridge at the bottom of the hill that eats roller bladers.

So, I decided to go by how my legs felt, and how hard I was breathing. I ended up running at what I thought was a pretty good pace for me, legs stretched out a bit, but still maintaining a good turnover pace. My breathing was strong and regular, but not gasping or panting. I wouldn't have been able to talk. I checked my heart rate manually at the end of several of the run sections, and it turned out to be mid 140's.

The first set was an easy run to get warmed up, starting easy, and ending up at my normal pace. The next 4 sets were the hard runs. My legs and feet felt really good. I had a nice even pace, and I felt strong and comfortable. The last one was a bit of a push to keep going, and I was sure I slowed down a bit. The last set was a very easy trot to cool down again. Surprisingly enough, the second half was just a minute faster than the first half. I did lots of stretching afterward.

As near as I can tell from mapmyrun, the total distance was 13.3 Km in 1:32. That's about a 7 min/ Km pace or 8.5 Kph overall. One of the harder run segments started and ended at good landmarks, and that turned out to be 6:30 min/Km or 9.25 Kph. I'm feeling really good about that. I don't know that I could maintain that pace for a whole half marathon, and I'm not sure if I should try.

The day ended with a massage. Heavenly!