Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Banning Myself From Indoors

My goal for the rest of the month is to do all of my workouts outside, weather permitting .. except the pool.  No more treadmill, no more spinning class/stationary bike.  It's time for me to brave the heat and the cars and the trails and get outside.  I read in my training book that it's critical to train in conditions that are similar to race day.  And since I'm not competing this triathlon on a treadmill or on a spin bike, I need to become more familiar and comfortable with being outside.  I need to get better at my bike skills, and need to learn to pace myself without having a spinning rubber track do it for me. 

I was determined to run outside tonight on the amazing trail system near my house.  I struggled to get the energy to get going after the swim experience I just had but once I got outside, I felt much better.  Today's workout consisted of a 10 minute warm-up, 25 minute run and a 10 minute cool down.  Definitely manageable.  It was still a bit warm (probably 80 degrees) and a little windy but the breezes helped cool me down.  The trail is mostly flat and the "hills" provided a bit of a challenge but nothing that I couldn't handle.  I'm working on my run/walk technique for race day since I've come to the conclusion that both mom and I are not going to be able to run 6 miles straight.  I think we're going to use a 5 minute run, 2 minute walk routing to keep us on pace and give us the necessary breaks we need to get through the entire distance.  I worked on that tonight and it felt pretty good.  As I walked up the last hill back to my car, my Nike+ GPS tracking device said I had hit 45 minutes and went exactly 3.1 miles.  I'll take it.

Daily Running Miles: 3.1
Total Running Miles: 33.6

No comments:

Post a Comment