A New Fan...

...of cross-training, that is. I've always resisted the idea of cross-training - when I am training for a swim, I swim. Training for a half-marathon - I run. Seems logical. This whole tri training thing had me worried I was going to be partially ready for three events instead of fully ready for one. Boy was I wrong, and I couldn't be happier about it!

Tuesday night was a coached track workout. The warm-up was a one-mile jog, which I completed in about 10 minutes and 45 seconds (it felt like I was running pretty hard though, so I figured everything else would be slower). When I started this whole thing, I was barely running at all and maybe able to do 12-minute miles on a good day. There was no pace, just run or not run. It was nice to see improvement, even if only in the warmup jog.

After that first mile and some core work (yay abs!), we had a one mile "set" where we did 100 meters of drills (like butt-kicks, lunges, sidewinders,) followed by 100 meters of jogging (400 meters = 1 lap = 1/4 mile). This was shockingly hard and had us all REALLY out of breath by the end of it.

Then we were on to the main set. This was an interesting one. We were to write down an estimated two-mile time on a notecard and hand it back to a coach. Then, without watches, we were to run two miles. The person who came closest to their estimated two-mile time won a cash prize.

I estimated 22 minutes, figuring that a 10-minute-30ish-second warmup would translate into about 11-minute miles. Of course, as soon as I wrote it down I freaked out because I really, really did not want to be slower than the time I'd written down. Not for any other reason that personal pride, but still.

So of course I go out hard, because heaven forbid I go slower than a stupid time I wrote down a notecard, right? (I have issues, yes.) I kept waiting to crash, but I didn't. For the first mile I was right behind a woman who I know is a strong runner (well, strong compared to me), and I actually kept up with her! It was good pacing too. I lost her on the first lap of the second mile - but still felt pretty strong and although I know I slowed down I did run faster than I thought I'd be able to.

I crossed the finish line to the following two-mile time:

19 minutes and 8 seconds

Those would be 9 minute and 34 second miles! Holy crap! I can't remember the last time I ran a mile in under ten minutes, much less two miles! I doubt I could keep that pace up after a long bike ride and in the Hawaiin heat, but still was pretty darn happy about that time and it's so rewarding to see improvement.

I never thought cross-training would work so well, but darn it if I'm not getting into really good shape! Yay! We won't talk about the fact that I am very, very tired and will focus on the fact that I think I should be able to finish this thing in a reasonable time (under 3 hours and 45 minutes as an inital guess?) and not feeling too horribly.