Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Search: My Fast (With Why I Write This)

Run Day
time- 29:52*
*negative split

Swim Day
1 x 150- Warm-up
10 x 100- 1:30
1 x 50- easy
5 x 50- 0:45
1 x 50- easy
1 x 500- 7:00
1 x 100- Cool down
total- 2100 yards

Today was a Searching For Fast kind of day, and it went well. Rather than swim first like I would normally do, I took advantage of rising early and cooler weather to run first. My plan was to negative split my half hour run without dialing it back in the front half. And I did it! Turned around right at the 15 minute mark and got back at the 29:52. I'm not sure how far I went because of the inclement weather. Didn't want my Dirtbag Distance Determining Device to get wet. That would really cut into my texting-while-shopping-with-my-wife time. So I'm pleased, I ran hard, and I think I'm going to be able to get some more fast back in the coming runs.
And I decided to go for it today in the water too. Short, powerful bursts was the goal, and sustained time standards. I nailed the 10 x 100 set. I was finishing at 1:15-1:16 for the first few, held to 1:20 or less for the next, and finished nine and ten back down at 1:15. BAM! Couldn't be more pleased. Felt strong, good stroke, and great walls. Walls aren't really much help during any of the races I do, but fundamentals is as fundamentals does. Good long strokes, good finish, good all around. And that 500. Dig it, baby. 7:00, and I thought my stroke was shortening up during it. I was half sure I was just barely going to be making my 7:30 goal. Good times.
On to why I blog. It's kind of a running joke (get it?) in the amateur athlete-blogging world that if you are going to be working out, you need to have a blog. I present Example A. (Note: There is an absolutely hilarious one about Ironman training too.) Every once in a while I question why I spend a few minutes nearly every night writing this stuff down. And its rarely short. I'm not very good at self-editing, so I run on until I'm done. And it can't possibly all be interesting to a reader. But, really, this is more about me tracking my emotional and physical peaks and valleys during a training cycle than anything else. This is good for me. I can look back and pinpoint when I was feeling good and what those workouts looks like, when I wasn't and what those looked like, and see how far I've come. Most athletes put a little plus/minus next to each workout in their training journal. I like writing too much for that. Which is reason number two for the blog. I like to write. Its another exercise. It's something I'm decently good at, and something I greatly enjoy. If something happened and I couldn't work out, the biggest long-term behavior change would be I would write more.
My ego hopes that some of what I write gets into the minds of readers and, along with being entertained by my oh-so-witty repartee, some of you get up and do something. Go walk, go run, go ride a bike, sign up for a local 5k, or train even harder at what you're already doing so that you know you can beat the tattooed blowhard who is filling the interwebs with an ever-increasing amount of data at whatever it is I'm writing about today. As a teacher, any little bit of inspiration I can dish out reflects back and will help me train all that harder. See what I did there? How I put it out for real? Again, BAM.
And an unexpected bonus to this is I've been meeting a ton of like-minded people. Great blogs, great inspiration, great people. Talking to triathletes and barefoot runners has helped me in a dozen different ways. And I occasionally get to actually meet these people in real life. I'd link the examples I'm thinking of here, but I kind of already did that so if you're interested just check out that big list along the side of my page. This isn't about page hits. Its a personal journal of a personal journey which, thanks to the magic of the net, gets to be overshared almost daily. I don't want to get all Ivan Drago on you with an, "I blog for me! For me!" But that's kind of the case. I just like having anyone along for the ride who wants to come. And I thank you for reading.

3 comments:

  1. First of all, great work on the negative splits. I have tried to make all my runs negative splits. You even did it by going out at your regular speed.

    Next... Good read on why you blog. You nailed it well. Your writing style is easy to consume. What do you teach? Does it have anything to do with your writing skills?

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  2. Thanks, dude.
    I teach fourth grade, so I get to teach them more detail writing skills rather than the basic, "This is a sentence, these are words," kind of things. Lots of vocabulary and reading strategies. Fun stuff that builds on the less interesting (to me) basics they learn in the early grades.So I get to flex the writing muscles a little, but not much.

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  3. my wife is a teacher too... high school art. right now she is teaching general art and photography. i admire those who teach our children.

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