The Week So Far and the Unexpected Fun

Monday night was my first speed workout of the new year.  I had taken two weeks off from speed with the holidays and my post-PR half marathon performance.  Our coach had a relatively easy workout on deck for us...2x800, 2x1000, 2x1200.  The first of each interval was run on a slow pace from marathon to half marathon to 10K on the 1200.  The second of each interval was to be run on 5K pace with no rest between the two intervals in the set.  After each set we got 1 min 30 sec. rest before starting the next set.  I must tell you that we only hear marathon pace for our workout maybe once or twice a year.  My running partner and I loved the relaxed pace and we definitely felt the pickup for the faster interval. 

The crazy unexpected surprise was that on Tuesday morning I woke up with sore abdominal muscles.  I can only guess that the final 1200m interval where we were picking our pace up every 200m was an extra hard ab workout for me! Whoopsie, no more 2 week breaks from speed work.

Tuesday I reached out to a swim coach who is hosting a clinic in a few weeks in Tulsa.  The clinic conflicts with our Annual One Hour Postal Swim Meet and I wanted to see if she could do any other dates that weekend. I heard back from her immediately and found out that she is a Univ. of Arkansas alumni and would be more than happy to come to NWA that weekend and host a clinic here.  I've reached out to our local pool to see if they are willing to host the clinic because having the pool will be the first step in actually making this clinic happen.  I'm really excited and hope we can pull it together.  The coach is Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen and she has held numerous records including Master Swimmer of the Year. 

Today my unexpected fun came from starting early before our group run.  The group run begins at 6PM but I was able to get there and start at 5:30 which meant I got to run for almost 30 minutes in the fading sunlight versus complete darkness.  It was awesome and I didn't have to wear my headlamp and the temps weren't super cold yet either. 

Is your week off to a good start?  If you haven't taken a chance to enter my Pay It Forward giveaway, please follow this link to do so.  The two books that I am giving away were both great reads and full of inspiration and motivation to help you start 2011 off right!