My First Track Party

After a pretty bad run on Tuesday I wanted redemption. I decided to head to the track on Wednesday evening for my very first track party. I have honestly never had any desire to run at the track but after reading about how much fun Sarah was having during her track parties I wanted to have one myself. I didn't want to do a long workout or anything that would leave me too sore but I still wanted a challenge. I settled on doing a mile warm up, followed by four rounds of a 400 sprint and an 800 recovery.

The warm up mile was slow and terribly boring, leaving me questioning why I was even at the track. But after my first 400 sprint I remembered why I was there. I had no time goals for this run, only to sprint my heart out and see what I was capable of. I am not used to doing short fast sprints so it took my body a little bit to really get going.

4 x 400 sprint
1:52 (7:09), ? (I forgot to hit lap), 1:44 (6:59), 1:40 (6:40)


I had my garmin set up so it only showed me time, not pace. I was able to somewhat figure out my pace with a little math but I was still shocked to see how fast I was going once I got home. Anything sub 8 min/mile is normally pretty darn fast for me so I was in no way expecting to see a number starting with a 6 pop up.

This run may not be very impressive to those of you who frequent the track and do longer and harder runs but for me this was a pretty big deal. I still have a little over two weeks until my first triathlon but this run left me excited to start marathon training. I had a blast running instead of forcing myself to keep going. I actually considered doing more repeats but it was already dark out and I had a lot of homework to finish.

Improving Speed On the Bike

I am a complete cycling newbie and am pretty darn slow. I don't mind not being the fastest one out there but when other triathletes complain about being slow and they are averaging 17-18 mph I know I have a problem. Most of my rides lately have been between 13-15 mph. I really enjoy cycling so I don't notice that I am going slowly but I also want to put up a respectable time at my upcoming triathlon.

So far this year all of my rides have been about increasing mileage. Most of my rides have been between 18-24 miles, with one 42 mile ride. Now that I have proved to myself that I can successfully complete the distance, I want to work on doing it faster.

Today the plan was to do 18 miles. My legs felt pretty tired from the start but I wanted to see what I could do. I kept the pace steady and moderate for the first half of the ride and then did 60-120 second pickups throughout the second half. My overall pace on the ride was just under 14 mph but I was pushing 17-18 mph during the pickups. By the end of the ride my legs were pretty shot, but in an oh so good way.

I am not sure why, but I don't feel much pressure to be a fast cyclist. I do for running but with cycling I feel as though I could be going 5 mph and it wouldn't matter. And even though I don't feel any pressure, I would still like to be able to pull times that I am proud of and will make me competitive.

My boyfriend is a cyclist and does century rides so I turned to him for help on getting faster. He suggested that I do workouts exactly like the one I did today except with even more sprinting during the ride. He also said that he noticed a big increase in power and speed after he started strength training.

Any other suggestions for getting faster on the bike?