Today's Psycho Workout

I don't know what exactly came over me, but today was a psycho workout day for me. It all started with me telling myself that I HAVE TO get my new bike out and get some miles on it soon. I'm going to be out of town for about 3 of the next 6 weeks (before the triathlon) and I have to get all of the kinks worked out of the bike before then since it's new. I've been riding the spinning bike at the gym a bit, so I'm still getting some biking in, but it's not exactly the same. Anyway...

FIRST...
This morning after dropping the kids off at school, I took my bike out for a 3 mile ride around the neighborhood to make sure everything was working and to try out the aerobar. It was and I had some aerobar success, so I loaded my bike into the back of my van and drove to the location where the triathlon is going to be. I've ridden the course before, so I knew there wasn't too much traffic (on the sidewalk anyway) and I had a goal of doing 15 miles today (the bike length of the tri that we'll be doing soon). The 15 mile ride was a GREAT success. I rode it in 57:30... about 8 minutes faster than my race time of 1:05:21 last year. Plus, in the race I don't have to slow down every time I cross a driveway or parking lot like I had to do today, so I'm very optimistic that I'll shave a few more minutes off of that time! :)

THEN...
I decided to try to run. Don't get me wrong, I peddled HARD during the bike ride so I was exhausted, but I'm always telling myself (usually while I'm running) that the time that you get better at running is when you're tired and you keep going (whether that's really true or not, I don't know, but it works for me). So... I put my bike back into the van, got my iPod and headphones out, and took off running. From the get go, I felt like I was taking super-small steps and going SO slow. I felt like I was using every ounce of energy that I have, yet I wasn't getting anywhere fast. I was about ready to stop around half of a mile when I checked my gps app (MotionX's GPS on my iPhone... AWESOME app!) and saw that I was running at an average speed of 8:04/mile! I guess my legs just felt really weird from being on the bike so I just felt slow. I knew that I couldn't keep that up for long, but I kept going. This tri's run distance is 3.3 miles, so I decided that I was going to do the whole 3.3 miles to see how fast I could do it. The first mile, I managed to keep up my pace and ended with a time of about 8:15 for my first mile. I don't remember what mile 2 was, but my 5K time was 27:30!!! Despite feeling like there was no way in the world I could make it the additional .2 miles after hitting 5K, I completed the 3.3 miles in 29:22... nearly 2 minutes faster than my race time of 31:16 last year!

I left the park that was my home base for these workouts feeling hungrier than I've ever felt in my whole life, but SO excited about how I'd done! I headed straight to my favorite sandwich joint (Don's Famous Hoagies, a local fave) and chowed down! My parents had the kids for the afternoon, so I took advantage of that and came home to nap off some of my exhaustion.

THEN...
I had promised Annabelle that I would take her to the big gym tonight where she'd get to play with her school buddy, Annabelle. The last couple of weeks, I've taken her there on Tuesdays (when other Annabelle's mom teaches aerobics classes) so that I can get some swim time in while she plays. So, my original plan was to do that again today. By the time that gym-time came, I was still SO tired and did not want to go, but I also didn't want to go back on my promise. So, I suited up, picked up Annabelle, and we went to the gym. I managed to get in a total of . 5 miles in the pool! I timed my 1/3 mile (the distance of the tri swim) and completed it in 13:48... nearly a minute faster than my race time of 14:41 last year!

So, even though I didn't do the whole race with the events back to back the way they would be in the race, I did more than I would have done in a race anyway and am really excited to see how I do in the actual race! The hard part is going to be keeping up my training (which usually consists of just doing one of these events) during the 3 weeks of vacation before the tri. While I don't intend to have any more of these psycho-workouts, I will definitely be pushing myself to do as good as I possibly can!