Scrambled

My training is very much centered around my long runs at the moment, which requires reasonably easy training on the intervening days. As a result, I'm doing more than half of my mileage on the first 2 days of the week. The 5 remaining days are made up of 3 easy days and 2 fairly short ones with some faster running. One of these slightly more intense workouts were Thursday's mile repeats. On Saturday I did some 400s. The running as much, much faster than anything I will require during the ultra, of course. I can only hope they are right when they say this will strengthen my legs for the long miles to come.

Actually, I wasn't quite as apprehensive as I normally tend to be before speed workouts. 400s are over in less than 90 seconds, and even when the pain strikes you know it will be over soon enough. I only had 10 repeats on the program, and I knew I'd make those. Maybe it was my relaxed attitude, or maybe it was the fact that it was about 9 o'clock rather than 6 o'clock as it tends to be during the week, but I had a pretty good workout, certainly in comparison to many of my previous attempts at intervals. I needed the first 2 repeats to get into the groove, but from then on I was surprisingly consistent.

88, 86, 83, 82, 84, 84, 83, 86, 83, 84. I'll take that.

I had to mind Maia for a while during the afternoon, and when I turned my back for about 3 minutes she used the opportunity to cause maximum havoc in the kitchen. I found her cracking eggs on the table top. In an attempt to rescue as much as I could I gathered some of the stuff and chucked it into a pan, though she would probably tell you that she did all the cooking herself. She certainly enjoyed her scrambled eggs.


After an easy 5-mile recovery run in the morning I set off towards Killarney for another swimming lesson. Since I had not been in the pool for 14 days I felt rather rusty at first, but things improved after a while. Still, I'm under no illusion about the task ahead. I'll never swim like a fish, but if I can cover at least the required distance of a sprint triathlon without drowning I'll declare this a success. Up to then it's no more than cross training.

Maia must really have liked her scrambled eggs yesterday. I found her at the counter again, cracking an egg. Luckily this time I managed to stop her after only one egg. She still enjoyed that one, scrambled. Maybe she wants to be a cook. Or maybe she's just a toddler on the rampage. We've had some of those before.

23 Jan

8 miles, 1:01:42, 7:44 pace, HR 55
10x400 in 88, 86, 83, 82, 84, 84, 83, 86, 83, 84

24 Jan

am: 5 miles, 40:35, 8:06 pace, HR 140
pm: 80 minutes swim

Weekly Mileage: 71.5