The Week before the Tri?

I still haven't registered, but Sundays Tri might be the go (link).  It is a bit longer (especially in the run department) than I wanted to start with, but them's the breaks.

Getting back to the week that was, this is how it all happened.

Monday
In the pool for a swim, do the normal 1.5 miles.  Still working on the 10 laps/4 mins pacing and with some suspected miscounting, but righting by watching the clock.  I bring it in in 39:15, or 45 seconds under the schedule for the 100 laps.  I am feeling fairly comfortable doing it.  Need to ensure that I am doing all the laps, and hitting the time properly.  I was going to get one of these clever little watch/lap counters (link), but there were out.  I need to order one on the interwebs.

Tuesday
Lunchtime soccer at EA for a 3.5 mile run.  The field is smallish and gets relatively full, so it makes it difficult to go much further.  I am going to actually have to go back to running at some stage, especially for the longer runs.  I have a very positive opinion of how running in soccer prepares you for distance running (harking back to helping Colleen train for her 1/2 marathon), when I ran 11 miles without much difficulty, without any previous distance running but a lot of soccer.  However I was playing a lot more soccer then.

Wednesday
Out for a ride and around the normal loop.  pretty decent ride.  21mph moving average, and it was windy!  Nothing particularly noteworthy happens on the ride.  Fairly weary when I return though.  Looking back at the stats I am a little disappointed with my cadence.  I try to keep it over 90, but for the ride I averaged 86.  Need to work on that.

Thursday
In the pool again and I take the garmin.  The plan is to hit the lap button every 10 laps to get a really good idea of the splits.  Once again trying to make each of those 4 minutes or better.  I was pretty nervous about leaving my $400 super sports watch on then edge of the pool, but I did it anyway, and I was lucky enough to still have it at the end.  So here are the splits:

Count	Time
1-10	3:50
11-20	4:01
21-30	3:58
31-40	3:59
41-50	3:53
51-60	3:58
61-70	3:54
71-80	4:19
81-90	3:51
91-100	3:42

Somewhere between lap 71 and 80, I think it was 78, this woman stopped me to ask me to move.  I have no idea why she felt the need to do this - or why she couldn't swim somewhere else.  I didn't hit pause straight away, so some of this is extra time.  it also took me about 30 second to let her know I was busy swimming and she could go somewhere else and swim.  So it gave me a bit of a rest but I am pretty happy with that.  I am not sure if doing it with the $400 watch sitting on the edge of the pool is the best was to accomplish this - but the results are great.

Friday
Out to EA for soccer again, 3.58 miles in an hour.  Not too bad not that good.  But it is a very enjoyable way to burn 600 calories.

Saturday
Out on a ride with Colleen, we do the normal loop with some of Canada tacked on, to up the mileage a little.  It ends up being about 27 miles.  We take it fairly easy, and it isn't a bad ride except for the howling wind.  Colleen keeps trying to tuck in behind me while I am trying to talk to her.

I get back from the ride and turn around and off to soccer.  My legs are a little weary, but the game is on a much bigger field than a EA and it goes for longer - as a consequence I run a lot further.  A lot further.  I manage to run 6.4 miles (~10km) in 90 minutes playing soccer, which is much further than I have gone before while playing.

Saturday Soccer Track

 

Click to enlarge, back button to return here

I am thinking of making a new goal for soccer, much like the swimming goal.  Each mile for playing soccer should be no slower than a 13 minute/mile, as that is about walking pace.  Slower than that I am obviously standing around too much.  Of the mile splits during this Saturday game only one of the miles was under 13 minutes.  So I should be doing even more running that this.  Actually looking back last time Colleen and I walked, (walking at the dish) we averaged about 14:30 minutes/mile - so that will be the new standard.  By that my average pace over the saturday soccer game was right on course (14:13 min/mile), with the EA soccer games being way slow at 17:07 min/mile

Don't do anything Sunday.  LAZY.  Am I tapering for the Tri on Sunday, you guess is as good as mine!