A Case of Overconfidence

After yesterday's unexpectedly fast longish run, last week's track party, and an unofficial 5K PR the week before I started to think that I was invincible. I was quickly reminded that I am not some sort of running superstar when I hit the track tonight for my second and last speed workout before next week's triathlon.

My planned workout was:
1 mile warm up
3x 800 fast, 400 recovery
5x 400 sprint, 800 recovery

This would have put me at a total of seven miles. I am really not sure why I thought running seven miles of hard track running would be a good idea when my longest run during this training cycle was not only seven miles but the previous day. The other problem with this workout was that I went during the hottest time of the day so that I wouldn't miss a minute of watching my favorite swimmers battle it out at Olympic Trials.

Before I even started the workout I was sweating buckets and should have taken that as the first sign to back off on the planned mileage. But nope, that did not happen. I started my warm up and was immediately greeted by wind. Luckily the wind was only affecting me on part of the lap, but it still felt pretty miserable.

Besides starting out way too fast on my first 800 the first half of the workout went pretty well. Even on the recovery jogs I was holding a pace much faster than what I am used to. But when the third 800 came I started to really feel the effects of yesterday's run. I tried to push myself but my body fought back.

3:30 (7:07), 3:28 (6:58), 3:33 (7:09), 1:46 (7:03)

I thought I would do better with the shorter distance of the 400 sprints so I moved on. After the first 400 I decided to call it quits though. I felt absolutely terrible and was even starting to get dizzy. I realized that pushing myself even more so close to a race is not worth it. I would rather be able to push myself even harder during my race.

After I left the track I came home to watch the Olympic Trials. While I watched I soaked my feet in a big bucket filled with ice water. This was my first time doing an ice soak and boy was it an experience! Within seconds of putting my legs in the bucket my feet started to hurt really badly. I wasn't sure if this was normal but I decided to keep my legs submerged for at least five minutes. After I was done my legs felt a million times better and I could really notice how much swelling went down. Ice baths may not be fun but they are definitely effective.