I feel the need...the need for speed!

My past two days of training were focused on speed. Last night I did a swim speed workout and today I was at the track for the first time in a while. I'm going to try and consistently add these workouts into my training between now and the end of the season. I've done speed workouts in the past but very sporadically. I feel like I'm at the point in my training where I can start to worry about speed. Since I'm mostly doing sprint races I know I have the necessary endurance for this distance, but there is room to lower my time. Even though my 'A' race, the Mighty Hamptons olympic, is 6 weeks away, and my first olympic, I think the inclusion of these workouts will help me overall.

Here's what each workout consisted of...

Swim (yards)

Warm up: 3x100 (swim/kick/pull)

Main Set: 4x400 pyramid (25/50/75/100/75/50/25) with 10 sec. RI between reps and 2-3 min RI between sets

Sprints: 10x25 with 10 sec. RI

Run (meters)

Warm up: 1x1600 @ easy pace

Main Set: 10x400 - 200 @ 8:00/pace, 200 recovery

Sprints: 10x50 (yards)

2x100 (yards)

Portland to San Francisco

This is only about 2 weeks late but I figured I should post about it. I definitely need to get my act together and get back into blogging. The last week of the trip was a catch 22. Everywhere we went was beautiful but I was starting to get a little burned out from traveling and needed a break that I didn't have time for. The highlight of the trip from Portland to San Fran was the Redwood Forests. I had seen plenty of pictures of Redwoods but it's impossible to appreciate their size unless you see them up close and personal. A huge portion of the Northern California coast is covered with Redwoods so we stopped at a handful of places to walk on the trails and see these behemoths. At one point we drove along a road called The Avenue of The Giants, a road surrounded by redwoods, and this led us to The Drive-Thru Tree, an old redwood that was cut out to fit a car through it. Even though it was a tourist trap it was still cool to drive a car through a tree. The drive through Napa Valley to San Fran was very windy and curvy, so much that I started felling sick. But once we got into the valley and drove through the wineries it was beautiful. I was reminded a lot of the four months I spent in Florence.

San Francisco was a beautiful city, and it was the first place on the west coast I really could have pictured myself living in...for the most part. It reminded me a lot of Boston and New York, just with a lot of hills! You hear about the fog in San Francisco but much like the redwoods, you need to be there to fully experience it. When the fog rolls in it covers the entire city within a matter of a few minutes. At the end of the trip on our way to the airport you could see the fog coming over the mountains into the valleys like someone was pouring it out of a pitcher. We did a lot of the touristy things around the city like going to Alcatraz, riding the cable cars, driving down Lombard Street, and eating at Fisherman's Wharf. We also headed out of the city down to the Monterrey peninsula and drove along the 17-mile Drive through Pebble Beach. After Monterrey we had dinner with our cousins at their home in Menlo Park, which seemed like a really nice suburb of the city. After being in the city for only an hour or so it's easy to see that San Fran is a very active, fit city. I imagine it's filled with triathletes who love climbing hills and swimming in cold water! I had a great time on the trip and I can't wait to go back and explore the rest of the west coast, but I was happy to be home and get back into training!

Seattle to Portland

A week into our vacation so far and we've made our way down from Seattle to Portland. With stops along the way on the Olympic peninsula we've seen some amazing sites. Mount Rainier was beautiful and surreal at the same time. Being from the east coast the tallest mountain I've ever seen is Mt. Washington which is a little over 5000 ft. Mt. Rainier is over 14000! This was the one day we had bad weather so by the time we got to the visitor center about a mile up visibility was around 20-30 feet and we couldn't see the summit. But anywhere you go in Seattle you can see the mountain and it's really cool to see it in the background of the city skyline. On the Olympic peninsula we drove through the Olympic national park and had some great views of Mount Baker and breathtaking views of the Olympic mountain range. We were staying at the lodge on Lake Quinault which is situated in the Lake Quinault rain forest, and we also took a tour around the forest. Our next stop was Portland which offered great views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Saint Helens and seems like a pretty cool town.

Overall I'm really loving the west coast so far. It is a little weird though to be outside at 10pm and it's still light out. Unfortunately I haven't be able to run at all. I twisted my ankle in Seattle and it was sore for a few days. But it's feeling better now and maybe I'll get a run or two in when we get to San Francisco!

Road Trip!!!!

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to Seattle with my twin and our parents for a 2 week graduation vacation! Over those 2 weeks we'll be road tripping down to San Francisco stopping at a bunch of places along the way. It's unfortunate that I'll be missing full training for 2 weeks but I'm going to try and go for a run a couple times a week. It should be a lot of fun and a great experience running in new towns and cities. If all goes well I will try and update a few times about the different stops along the way and maybe post some pictures!

Runner's High

It's amazing how quickly a few rough training days can be reversed by one great session. Yesterday my brother and I went out for a bike ride. He just started riding about a month ago and has an old school Peugot bike. Since he played lacrosse in college he has the legs to last for a good amount of time and can handle hills very well, but still has to work on keeping it going once getting over the top of a hill. Since he has an old bike and it doesn't have as many gears as mine does he can't crank the speed up on downhills or flats as well as his legs can handle, so I had to go a little slower at times. But the route we went on was fairly hilly, with a couple big ones and I definitely gave my legs a great workout. When we got back, he decided he wanted to try and go for a run to test himself. So we laced up the running shoes and went out for 1.5 miles. I was shocked at how well both of us ran! I was shocked that he wanted to run at all! He hates running and thinks triathletes are crazy. But we kept up around a 7:42 minute pace the whole time, and our legs felt great! I personally haven't run that fast in a long time. In fact, two days ago, as I posted, I ran a horrible 5k and was around a 9:00 minute pace, so even though yesterday's run was only 1.5 miles, I ran it very fast and after riding for just over an hour. I felt so great that 20 minutes after we finished the run I went and played tennis for an hour! My legs still felt great and I was hitting the ball extremely well. I've had runner's high before, but haven't felt it since last fall and I forgot how awesome it is! I felt invincible...like I could do an Ironman! Well…maybe not.