Columbia Triathlon Week 4

Week 4 was not my best week but certainly wasn't my worst. I was coming off almost a complete rest week and dealing with a lot of school related stress. I was feeling absolutely terrible the beginning half of the week, which didn't help things. I felt severely overtrained and was ridiculously hot for three days straight. I started taking a new medicine Sunday night that I think was the culprit.

On Wednesday I did my first time trial swim so I could measure my progress and compare it to where I was last year. After a warm up I did a 200 for time, followed by 2 minutes rest and a 400 for time. My arms felt heavy and lethargic the entire time but the good news is that my 200 was FOUR seconds faster than last year's at this same time. I think I went too hard on my 200 though because I was beat for that 400.

200- 2:20
400- 5:07

Sometimes I struggle with these times because they are so much slower than when I swam competitively. It's hard to look at a 200 that is 20 seconds slower than my best as being fast. It's all part of this triathlon journey though. I can't dwell on the past if I want to get better.

Taking a break from training to see Ellie Goulding

The end of the week finished up nicely with the return of my pre-injury running pace. Most of my runs this year have averaged in pace anywhere from 9:25-10:30. Not that these are slow, it's just that I worked my butt off last year to get faster and seeing those times was really defeating. I kept thinking that my pace would eventually drop back down but it never did.

Until Sunday. I was feeling pretty good so I decided to do a progression run. My goal was to run a mile under 9 minutes since that would be a stretch for me right now. I kept the first mile super easy as I was still figuring out the plan and trying to warm up. 9:57. I picked it up over the next mile, planning on running somewhere between 9:30-9:40. Instead, when I looked down at my watch it said 9:01. The next two miles clocked in at 8:48 and 8:20.

I was unbelievably happy with this run. I felt so good and strong. I don't want to get too excited about it but it was definitely the confidence boost I needed. I know I still have a lot of work to do but it's nice to know that the speed is deep down there somewhere.