After poisoning my body all weekend, I've surprised myself by how hard I've trained already this week, and by how great I feel! The job hunt is going very well, and I put in some great workouts in the last two days: 6.64km run on Monday morning with an avg pace of 5:25/km, Tuesday morning pathway ride with two respectable hills (see below), and a fast 4km run with the Country Hills Running Room Half-Marathon clinic that we both joined yesterday.
The ride was great-- I dropped N off downtown, then went to Edworthy, planning to do hill repeats. The idea was to warmup with a ride to the west, into unexplored territory... well, unexplored in terms of the bike paths! I made it to the Stoney Trail bridge, saw the nasty switchback pathway, and decided to tackle it-- tough! It's not as long as the Edworthy hill, and not quite as high, but it's definitely steeper and waaaay more technical. I was really breathing hard when I got to the top! On the way back, I got a little lost a few times, as I was trying to head back on the south side of the river through Bowness, which doesn't really work that well.
I eventually made it back to Edworthy (I don't get lost for long in Calgary), and immediately tackled the hill, hitting the lap button on my 310XT. I felt really strong, and was able to stay in the saddle for 98% of it, and stayed in 2nd gear for 75% of the hill. Got to the top, hit "lap" again, hydrate, then headed back down for another go. Got to the bottom, hit lap again, but the damn thing was frozen!! I figured it was a sign to call it a day.
Apparently these fancy little wrist computers have been known to do that-- freeze. By freeze, I mean they stop at whatever screen, with whatever numbers it was showing when it hiccuped. None of the buttons worked, but I ended up holding the power button, and it shut down and started up again a few minutes later when I tried it. Fortunately, my workout data was saved. I probably could have resumed the workout if I'd "rebooted" it earlier. (Makes me wonder, does it run on Microsoft?)
Running Room Clinic
That's right, both N and I are running with a club. I didn't mean to, but I ended up being the fastest of the group, because I was feeling so good! (5:02/km over 4.25km) I don't know what it is, but I get 10 minutes into a run, and I start to feel invincible-- like I can either run forever, or run faster. On Monday, I tried this new warmup routine that I saw in the latest Runner's World. I need to do this more often, because I think it's why I don't really hit my stride until 10 min into the run!
Plan for today is another run with the club- 3km steady. I don't think I'll pile on anything extra to that, because N wants to do hill repeats at Edworthy tomorrow.
