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.