Võistlused – Lehekülg 112 – Nourish, Train & Flourish

In Workout Week posts I will tell you everything about my last week’s workouts.

Monday‘s Jooks Jõud Venitus was cancelled and I went running in the morning. I didn’t push myself too hard and took it slower. I also climbed Toome Hill again. I love running in the city, it’s so much more interesting and time passes A LOT faster than when running in one straight line. Time: 1 hour, distance: 8,77K, average pace: 6:51 min per km. A good start to the week!

Tuesday: BodyPump. Finally I felt good in Tuesday’s Pump. 🙂 Before pumping I did a quick 20 minute warm-up run and honestly: it was the best decision in a long time! I was already sweaty and really working it out in warm-up track 😀 I ran out of my second bottle-full of water after triceps track… By the end of the class I was so thirsty I could have died. It was a good workout! I think I’m going to start doing a short run before every BP now.

Wednesday was supposed to intervals day but Maris told us that it was going to be a Monday’s routine: run+strength. I was determined to get some intervals done, so I did. I made a 10 minute warm-up run, then 20 minutes of intervalling, then 30 minutes of steady running. After that we had around 45 minute for strength training. It was a nice long workout 🙂

Thursday’s BodyPump was awesome. I did the whole chest track with 7+7 kg bar and also added a little weight for some parts in triceps and biceps. I just can’t get enough of this workout 🙂

Friday I had the IV Virtual Run this year. All in total I ran 12K that day. A longer post about my race coming next week.

Saturday was such a great day. I love Saturdays at home! I had a great breakfast and then went out to make the first real cycling trip this year. All in total I cycled 33,2 kilometres in almost 2 hours (with small breaks to check the map or take photos). I was out in a short-sleeved cycling shirt and shorts and I wasn’t actually cold at all. It was so sunny and warm and I got tanlines on my legs. I could have cycled even more but time is a scarce resource if you’re a student trying to graduate. Later that afternoon I did some more tanning on my porch along with my study materials… A good productive day 🙂

Sunday was actually supposed to be a cycling or swimming day but the weather was so great that I just wanted to run. I went running thinking it was going to be an easier recovery run. But now that I can run faster, I don’t want to go slow anymore. 😀 Distance: 7K, average pace: 6:06 min per km (= fast for me).

In total:

4 hours 30 minutes of running

2 hours 50 minutes of muscle workouts

1 hour 50 minutes of walking

2 hours of cycling

So much yellow in my workout table which means a lot of running. I was out on a proper run 4 times this week + did two short warm-up runs. All in total a little over 41 kilometres which a serious weekly distance for me. I actually really like my workout routine right now: concentrating on running and adding in supportive activities like strength and various cross training.

I sometimes do worry about my triathlon in July since I haven’t really started with serious cycling yet. I have done quite a bit of swimming in the winter but now I’m also lacking in that department. But at the same time, my half-marathon comes before the triathlon, so maybe now is not the time to worry about it (too much)? I don’t know. Let’s get the 21,1K done first and then start to seriously engage in tri prepping.

Sometimes you just can’t do it all. Or can you?

Tartu Parkmetsa Run started around 1 PM in the afternoon so I had lots of time in the morning to do other things. I slept in, enjoyed my bed and finally got up around 9 AM. Then I did regular morning stuff like showering and eating breakfast and was ready to leave the house around 11.30 AM.

The race destination was around 4 kilometres from my home, so I decided to walk/jog there. Unfortunately the weather was not great: around 6 degrees Celsius and raining. I walked most of the time and jogged for around 10 minutes but since I was carrying a backpack, it started to shake and bounce and it was pretty uncomfortable to run that way. But it was enough to get me a little warmed up.

Right after arriving, I met Elari and Marin. We got our starting materials, chatted and had to pose for some photos for the ISC booth 😀 Me and Marin also did some more warm-up: slow running and running exercises. I also saw lots of people from my running group at TYSK and many people I met in Crossfit in February. During the warm up the back of my left knee, that had been strange all week long, started to hurt more… That made me worry. A lot.

Soon it was time to wait in the toilet line, give away my backpack and jacket, take some photos and get ready for the start. I was a little nervous, cold and wet from the rain but so ready. My goal was to run a time under 42 minutes (6 minutes per kilometre). That would have been my personal best pace ever.

You can find me by my neon pink shoes 😀 Photo by Anti Aunap

The first kilometre: lots of mud and water. Just when the 1st km was over, I saw Elari passing me. He was actually ill and had told me that he would be taking it easy. Well, I was giving everything I got and he still passed me as if I was standing still 😀

I was going fast (for my personal level of fitness). The pace on first kilometer was just over 5 minutes per kilometer. When RunKeeper told me that, I was amazed. Me and 5 min per km? We hadn’t met before but it sure was a nice 🙂

I was worried that maybe starting too fast would mean finishing weak but I decided to take that risk. I slowed down a little after the first kilometer but I was still waaaaaay ahead of my goal pace.

Around the end of the 4th kilometer was the drinking point. I didn’t really need to drink so I didn’t. It had been raining all the time and parts of the track were really muddy. The worst part was just after the drinking point where I almost stopped because it was so slippery and I didn’t want to land face forward in mud. I also got a little side ache in my tummy but I ignored it and it went away. From there on, it was only 3 km to finish. I kept telling myself that if I made it that far with a really good pace, I can finish it strong.

I saw lots of familiar faces on the track and that made me happy. I felt my legs getting more tired but I just pushed forward. I managed to speed up on the last kilometre and ran to the finish line with a smile on my face.

38 minutes and 50 seconds. Average pace: 5:29 per kilometre. Happiness, joy and pride.

I outdid myself big time. I didn’t only accomplish my goal but improved my personal best pace (that I ran a week before in the III Virtual Run) by 48 (!!!) seconds per kilometer. And if you compare this 7K to Narva Energy Run last year, I improved my time by 13 minutes and pace by 1 minute and 44 seconds per km.

That kind of progress is just so awesome!

Kristel is a blogreader and friend who also trains in our TYSK running group. It was her first race and she did amazing!

Before going home, we had some soup, bread and an apple jam bun (any Estonians know a good English word for saiake?). The food was actually really good. Overall I have nothing bad to say about the events that Treenitus organises, they are always great. On my way home, I felt that me knee was hurting. I decided to give my body a rest day on Sunday just as my coach Maris had suggested.

Results:

My official time: 38:50
Average pace: 5:29 min per km (personal best!)
Average speed: 10,93 km/h
My position: 259th (out of 376 that finished)
My position among women: 81st (out of 168)
In my agegroup: 42nd (out of 91)

Now I just absolutely can’t wait for my half-marathon any longer 🙂 Fortunately I have 2 more 10K races before that to prepare myself. Excited to see what more my body can do 🙂

Rubriik: Võistlused

Workout Week 14.–20.04.2014

In total:

Tartu Parkmetsa Run 7K

Results: