Hill Attack

You know, I forgot to mention yesterday that I was actually pretty impressed with my HR stats for my own swim workout versus the Terrier swim workout. I know that it helped that I a swimplan workout to do, so I wasn't fending for myself in the pool, but I'm also glad that I am getting a good workout in on my own.

This morning I woke up at 4:27 on my own. Apparently it was time to get up for the Terrier brick. I did think that was a little early, so I laid in bed for a few more minutes of rest before getting all ready for the brick. Riding to the park this morning I was thinking that if I got another flat today, I would just act a bit like Normann Stadler, because I'm quite paranoid about the whole thing now.

We got there and the coach told us that the workout would be attacking the six hills in Central Park. We were supposed to do one warm-up loop of the park and then two where we really attacked the hills. This would be another workout for anaerobic training and working on VO2 max. Really, why can't this stuff be in English? I guess maybe I should know what they're talking about, but even when I read the descriptions on the internet, I'm still a little confused about all of these equations. The bike would be followed by a 20 minute run.

We started out on the bike. Now, they had mentioned that the road was torn up from 90th Street to about 100th Street, but I didn't really know what that meant. I quickly found out that it meant a brain-jarring ride along the road. Seriously, I hated that. Everyone else just zipped right past me and I was happy to go along at 10 miles an hour. I felt like if I went any faster I'd get that shaken baby syndrome. I tried to figure out what I could do to avoid going along the Upper East Side again. I decided that since we were supposed to be doing hills, I might as well do Harlem Hill repeats instead of doing the whole park loop. It was probably comparable and that way I could avoid the rough road.

I ended up doing 4 loops on the Harlem hill. Then I rode back down and through the lower loop of the park twice. I spent a lot of time at the ends of the park today and not very much time in the middle. I ended up riding for 12.29 miles in 51:02 (14.45 MPH average). I feel okay with that average, especially since I was only going about 8 or 9 MPH on the hill. I was definitely working hard on the hill. On my last Harlem hill repeat, I saw that my HR was at 180, which seemed like a lot of work for my heart, not to mention my legs!

When I got back to the transition area, I stretched out my hamstrings as best I could for a minute or so. I told myself that I would just start running and see how it went. At worst, I could just walk the lower loop of the park and at best I could run, but I wouldn't keep running if it hurt at all and I wasn't going to be in a hurry, I'd just take my time. Well, that strategy proved to be a really good one. I felt better running today than I have in a long time. I really wasn't in a rush and I ran the 1.75 miles in 17:36 (10:03 pace). My leg never hurt at all. It still feels really tight when I stretch it, but I'm not in any pain, so I'm even happier that I didn't keep running on Tuesday as I think it could have been a lot worse. I'm hoping to be able to get in a nice long run tomorrow, so hopefully this just continues to get better.

Calories: 799
Max HR: 180
Average HR: 159