Time Trial

Wow, my energy level today has been through the f'ing roof. Ever have those days where you feel fired up and are getting shit done? I'm there right now and I wish this would last forever. I don't think I did anything different to get me this way either. Last night I had kind of a nice/big dinner out, had some wine (2 glasses), got a decent amount of sleep (~8 hrs), made coffee like normal.... What could it be? I wish I knew those answers, because if there was a pill that did this I'd take it every day.

I'm MANIC!!!

So anyway, today was my infamous two mile TIME TRIAL. I've been a little quiet talking about it because I didn't want to psych myself out leading up to it. I've actually been relatively calm about running lately and not feeling nervous/anxious about performance, so that is wonderful.

I pleaded w/my coach to let me do this on a marked path, but Shawn told me that I had to do it on the track again. He wanted to keep the variables as close from the last one. So, FINE, the track it is.

Before the run I had plenty for breakfast and snacks; here's what I ate:

• 8 a.m.: water, coffee, 2 pieces of toast (one jam, one butter), scrambled eggs (about 1 egg)
• 10:30 a.m.: more coffee, water, yogurt
• Noon: apple, water
  
• 1:45 p.m.: water, Vanilla Gu just before my run

That's about 600 calories. I had no issues with my stomach during the run either!

I got down to the track to find the Portland State University track team working out - damn them! It was kind of inspiring to watch them warm up and do some intervals, but then they luckily left for a road run so I had the track to myself again.

I'm still not at the point where I trust my own pacing which is why I get anal about the Garmin. Instead of just going balls out for the whole run I wanted to set some expectations - my goal was to strive for 7:00/miles. I decided to manually hit the lap button on every quarter; I set my Garmin so that I could view the data fields for:

• current lap (so I could check at the 200 to see if I was pacing right)
• last lap (so I could look down at any point as see how I did on the last 400, not just when it flashes the last lap for a few seconds)
• total distance (in case I forgot what lap I was on!)

So after some drills I hit the line and took off! My first lap was way fast, as I knew it would be. I dialed it way back after I saw the time for that lap and kind of hit a groove on the next one. I really focused on my breathing and stride and did the military chant (left right left) once I got in the right pace. Last lap I just tried to bust my ass and was getting to the point where my breathing was just OOC. Whatevs. Here's the stats:

Lap 1 = 1:34
Lap 2 = 1:48
Lap 3 = 1:47
Lap 4 = 1:49

Mile 1 = 6:58

Lap 5 = 1:49
Lap 6 = 1:51
Lap 7 = 1:49
Lap 8 = 1:44

Mile 2 = 7:13

TOTAL = 14:14
Avg HR = 183

(I know that doesn't add up right but I think Garmin rounds #s or something.)

Comparison to the last TT on 11/7/08:

• no vomiting this time
• one WHOLE minute faster!
• avg HR less by 2 bpm
  

I'd like to think that I was totally drained and cashed after this but so far I feel fine. I could have maybe pushed it more in the middle by a few seconds per lap but I'm not going to over analyze here (right).

So glad about how I did and I feel great! Maybe all my energy is this damn taper - I love you taper! I'm excited for the race this Sunday and have been doing a lot of thinking on race goals, training recap and 2009 goals that I will share here soon.

I also added more peeps to my sidebar that you should check out sometime! Oh, and the significance of the pony pic is nothing other than making you smile. How can you not smile at that?

Notes to self: weather was sunny but track partly in the shade, mid-4os, I wore shorts and short sleeve + long sleeve drifit shirts (had jacket on during warm up/drills)