Notes
Accomplished a big effort at the end of a big week, and that feels good!
Anders and I ran for an hour before he had to go to work, and then I added on a second hour after he was done.
We had tentatively written in a workout that simulated quality at the end of a long effort, to try to start working towards long ski races in the (too-near, yikes!) future.
Anders and I ran easy for the first hour. As in EASY easy, ~8 min pace.
Then from an hour to an hour and a half I ran at more of a normal distance pace, or maybe slightly faster, in an attempt to start turing over the legs and warming the system a bit.
In the last 30 minutes I did 5x 2 min at L4, with 2 min rest in between each piece.
These got pretty hard and ugly for the last couple. The pace wasn't necessarily fast, I'm guessing, but to try to go L4, even for only 2 minutes, was QUITE hard at the end of a 2 hour effort.
In the skiing world L4 is the level below all-out.... something between a mile and 3k ish effort, probably. I bet today my effort was about there, and I'm not sure of anything more exact than that. It was really hard to try to judge pace at the end of 2 hours.
When I think about a workout that is 5x 2 minutes at mile pace, it sounds a little taxing, yes, but put it at the end of an already hour and a half effort, and it took just about everything out of me to get this one done. I was proud of the effort I made, and it felt really good to accomplish it. After the 5th piece I took about a 1 minute walking stint before jogging the last 3/4 ish mile home.
I'm discovering that I think I have a pretty good engine right now. 2 hour efforts, whether its running or skiing, are coming fairly easily, relatively speaking. I'm not where I need to be or hopefully will be come January and February, but its coming along. Feeling good about where I am regarding cardio engine and base right now. My explosive ski workouts are coming along as well, even though there's a long way to go.
On the other hand, if I want any shot at putting together any sort of races at the Luther Alumni meet, I'm going to have to start incorporating more efforts like today. And that's alright, because I have them slotted in there anyway. I'm not going to be on skis everyday this winter, that's just not practical or plausible, so running workouts will still have to be a big part of my repertoire. And especially regarding explosive power, I've already been writing in some uphill sprint sorts of workouts that will help both my explosiveness on skis and also my dreams of maintaining some sort of semblance of a facade for the Luther community that I'm somewhat good at this track thing. We'll see how the prospects of that particular dream actually play out.
I also SERIOUSLY need to get into the weight room, and I can't wait for that to be a regular thing starting this coming Saturday. And the goal is to also continue to incorporate one other day of body weight strength stuff throughout the week. But you know, there's life and stuff. So we'll see.
Readers Digest version: Workout was hard but good. Feel good about my engine right now, but long way to go.
Get me some speed and strength, STAT. Don't just want to get old and slow. #tooyoungforthat