Final Week....Race in 6 days!!!!

Butterflies.....every morning for the past week...

Well I leave for Hawaii in 2 days and what a great feeling that is, I can' wait. I really feel strong and confident that I am ready for this race, unlike my last big one, the marathon last year. I have stuck to the training regime for almost 5 months with very few deviations (hangovers) and only one bought of getting sick, although it was way longer than I would have hoped....

So this is my final update on the previous week's training, next week's blog will be all about Hawaii and the race!!

This past week I did the normal spin on Monday, but I was completely in a zone and probably had the best (and sweatiest) spin of this training season. Wednesday brought us to our last track practice...kind of sad, but also exciting, the reality that the race was right around the corner started to set in.

We did a few 3oom warm-ups, then 4 400m runs at pace and then we were off..oh ya forgot to say what we did. We were running our final 1 mile time trial. A guage to see if we improved over our first time trial back in early December. I had done a 6:52 mile then and being the overachiever I am, I put down my anticipated time at 6:45 for this time trial. Ya right, um no....a few of the coaches saw that and said no, they put me down for a 6:00 minute mile. Are you kidding me, that is flying and have you seen me? I am 6'3" and about 215-220 lbs....not your prototypical speed runner. Oh well, whislt blows and we are off. We all start out way too fast as usual, running thge first half lap at a 5:19 clip.....never going to finish if I continue to run this fast, so I actually pull up a bit and get into a pace I can handle and let the rabbits fly by me.

1 lap down - feel pretty winded, 2 laps down - i'm hurting but keep thinking i am halfway done, 3 laps down - slowest lap but was saving some energy, last lap - as soon as I start the lap I feel strong againg, mind over matter....so I keep moving at a good pace and then about the last 1/4 of the lap I hear some heavy breathing behind me (which I later find out was Brian, Greg and Kevin) so I kick in my sprinting stride and finish very strong. I will not lie, I did not feel great after these few minutes of my heart rate through the roof...actually almost wanted to puke after the run, but hey it was a time trial!!! I finished with a 6:08 or a 6:13, two different timers with different time.....I think I will say I did a 6:10 and split the difference...pretty good I am proud of myself.

I took Thursday off and on Friday did a nice run in Balboa Park.

Saturday - Final swim 2 miles...

I remember seeing this swim in the schedule back in December and thought how am I going to swim 2 miles in the ocean without drowning? Well I did it and did the first mile from the shores to the cover without stopping to see approximately what I could swim a mile in!! On the way back I took it a bit easier and swam with a friend stopping a couple of times to make sure she was okay and then back into the swim. All in all it was one of the best workouts all season, maybe because it was absolutely beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, or maybe because I had a great swim, maybe because it was the last team workout before we get to Hawaii....whatever it was, it was great and I know I will miss the team once this is all over....