Monthly Archives: September 2011

Eight Minute Mile

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I don’t run very often, but I’m trying to run more. No, I’m not trying to run more, but I am trying to run faster. It all started when I decided to get back to dropping a few pounds. One of the keys for me has always been walking and/or jogging.

They say the ideal way to burn fat is to keep your heart rate around 65% of max for 20+ minutes every day. If you go much higher than that, you won’t burn as much fat, but it’s still good for you.

I found that walking about 4.0 mph on a treadmill keeps my heart rate close to that magic 65% number. I also found that it takes at least 10 minutes of walking at that speed before my heart rate climbs to that magical number, so I decided to run fast for a mile to crank my heart rate up, then walk at 4.0 mph for 20 minutes or so.

I can’t just jog that first mile, I have to push myself. That’s just how I work. So that first mile has been getting a little faster each time I run it. I think if you look back through my runkeeper logs, I’ve been pretty close to a 9 minute mile in the real world (a world where I don’t get to slow to 4.0 mph after one mile). Knowing that, I figured I could push myself fairly easily to hit a single 9 minute mile.

I set the treadmill for 8.5 mph and started running. I kept that pace for 4 full minutes, which put me well past the half way point of that first mile. I dropped it down to 6.0 mph for one minute, then cranked it back up a little bit for another few minutes.

I crossed the 1.0 mile mark right around 7:50.

I guess I overshot my goal a little. Now I wonder if I should keep pushing faster on that first mile, or if I should try to extend the running to a second mile. Maybe a little of both. We’ll have to see.

More short course

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I still haven’t managed to get myself to swim practice on a long course day. In fact, I haven’t managed to get myself to practice more than once a week. Today was only my third time back at practice. It was a fairly small group today. I had my own lane and somehow I wound up getting a shorter interval time than everyone else. It was pretty brutal, but I think I’m not actually fast, but the fast people just were not there today. I’ll keep pushing.

Our coach was down in San Diego last Friday for a conference and expo. She brought back a bunch of different pieces of equipment for us to try out. I got to use these new hand paddles from Speedo that I really liked. They are smaller than my current paddles by quite a bit, so they’re easier to maneuver, but they have a curved lip on the front and inside edge, making them really grab the water. They felt small when they needed to be small, but powerful when they needed to be powerful. Like I said, I really liked them. I don’t see them listed on speedo.com just yet, but I’m guessing I’ll buy some when they start selling them.

As usual, I don’t think I’m remembering everything, but here’s what I think we did:

400 Free warm-up
8 x 50 kick-pull (25 kick, 25 pull) on 0:10 rest
8 X 50 fly kick on our backs (25 hands down, 25 streamline) on 0:50 (with fins)
4 x 50 10-10-10 kicking (both hands out, left out, both out, right out) with hand paddles
12 x 75 swim-drill-swim on 1:05
500 Pull warm-down
—–
2800 yards

Back for more

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Monday was a holiday, so there was no swim practice. Yesterday they swam long course, and I wasn’t really ready for that kind of pain. Today I made it back to morning practice. I’m sort of sad that I waited till summer was over to start swimming again. I really enjoy swimming as the sun comes up, but that won’t happen again until next year. We’re already too far into fall… and they’ll be putting the bubble over the pool soon. Oh well, at least I’m swimming again.

100 free warm-up
2 x (
      8 x 25 kicking on 0:40
      20 x 25 drill with fins on 0:30 (5 x fly, 5 x back, 5 x breast, 5 x free)
      4 x 100 free on 1:30 (no fins)
    )
400 pull easy warm-down
-----
2700 yards

Up In The Night

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A strange confluence of events over the past week or two led me to the pool in the middle of the night. It all started when I swam a few yards at Gold’s Gym. Then my old Masters Swim Team coach sent an email saying he was back from living in Texas and wanted to have a reunion with some of the old swimmers. We had everyone that could make it over for a pot-luck dinner… and by the end of the night I had committed to swimming “at least once” in the morning. That morning was this morning. And this morning I realized that “morning” has a completely different definition than I thought it did.

We got up around 5:10. Practice started at 5:30. Somehow getting up at 5:10 was not early enough to get us in the water on time. I don’t think we were very late, but we were at least a little late. It was still pitch black outside when we got in the pool.

I swam in the same lane as my old coach, Dave. As our warm-up was ending, we were joined by Keena, a local triathlon coach. Having not been in the water for a real workout in several years, I was a little uncomfortable. Somehow Dave and Keena managed to drang and push me through the main set. There’s a lot of pressure to perform when you have a coach 10 seconds ahead of you and another coach 10 seconds behind you. Somehow I stayed alive.

The first hints that it may not be night after all came as we were warming down. The horizon was just starting to turn from black to purple. We finished up, dried off, and drove all the way home before the sun ever came up. That’s just not right. And somehow I’ve gotten myself on the hook to be back at practice on Tuesday, when we’ll be doing LCM (Long Course Meters), which is much harder than the SCY (Short Course Yards) we did today.

I didn’t take any notes, but here’s at least most of what we did today:

6 x 200 pull
12 x hammer-down
6 x 50 russian free
6 x 50 drill your-choice
12 x 25 kick @ 0:40
500 pull

I need to get a kick board. I wasn’t happy using my pull buoy as a kick board.