It has begun — last night the training plans started. Vineman 2006, I will be ready!
Yesterday I started on the run schedule Libor kindly shared with me. 6 miles. But not like my normal 6 miles… keeping my HR around 150! I don't think I've ever ran with it that low. Since I know it can get into the 190s fairly easily, I'm going with that number for the Hadd training (as he says to use it for 193+, even if over 200). But… it meant that I had to run at an average moving pace of 11:47!! And this was with keeping my HR under 160 (average: 154, max: ~168-173) as I need to work down a bit (it gets over 150 almost at the sight of my running shoes in anticipation…). It was hard to keep myself running that slow, and the whole time I wondered if I was even getting a workout, as I didn't feel taxed. However, as a result it was harder to stay focused. If Libor hadn't repeated told me how well it is working for him, I'd have a very hard time sticking with it. As a bonus though, there were a few points where I was totally in the zone… the world was beautiful and I had wings and was just riding the back of a breeze… And I guess that will help me go back as well — during some of those moments I found my HR was under 150.
My GPS signal was being a little sporadic, but when motionbased smoothed it out, it was about .15 miles farther than the Forerunner had reported. So I guess that's what made the average pace not as bad as I thought it was being. However, I'm still not sure how to related this to the VDOT stuff as it tells me to run my long runs around 11:07, and my shorter runs faster. More reading and thought needed there.
Oh and here is the results of that run: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=391052
This morning I got back in the pool. I haven't swam regularly since JUNE!!! Got in 1800 yds (1600 with alternating 100s of swim and pull, and then a 200 easy swim cooldown) in about 45 minutes. It wasn't a hard effort workout, but definitely reminds me how much I need to get back in the pool! I think I will go to the swim clinic Crucible Fitness is holding Jan 28th (Lisa, if you are interested, we could carpool… it's Pasadena area I think).
So a good start…and tomorrow (if flat fixing goes well) will be a bike/metrolink commute. Ohhh good news on that as well. Driving home last night the freeway looked like a parking lot, so I skipped it. Took some surface streets, with an eye out for them as a biker would see them. I think I've found a route that would be fine for morning rides all the way in! For some reason mornings always feel less sketchy to me — prob cause a lot of the sketchy people aren't about yet. And the streets have more real businesses and such, and some lights, and decent pavement. So in the mornings, it will even be light by the time I get there, and during some morning traffic (which is fine with me). So I might try that tomorrow. But I need to map out where the Metro stations are along the way in case of too many flats, etc.
And in real life… xmas and New Years were both nice… good family time, good friend time, and now good work time…