My first Triathlon of the 2012 season, hell my first Triathlon evah!! is a scant 6 weeks away. It’s a Sprint; it should take me approximately 80-85 minutes to complete the 500 meter swim (15 mins) 14 mile bike ride (43 mins) 3mile run (24 mins). Of course I hope to be done sooner. Now while for the last 8 weeks I have been really really focused on the swim and really focused on the bike (albeit my road one and not my Tri one, pending recent saddle resolution) the one thing that has taken a back seat has been the run, in fact that’s not been anywhere near the front since late November.
That’s ok in my mind as it makes little sense to practice what I am good at (good is of course relative) and ignore what I am crap at and that is why I choose to do what I did, but with the race coming up it’s time to start turning the screw on the run, after all this is not like a usual 5k, I will have been in motion for around an hour before! With three successes (5k, 10k and Half Marathon and a partial success at the Marathon distance) it’s no surprise that I am returning back to the FIRST plan for some interval and tempo run workouts.
The first week (no pun) is in the bag and on Tuesday I ran 400m Intervals, I ran it on a Treadmill so I am reliant on a Garmin Footpod which is not as good as GPS or a Track so I am a little dubious over the splits but even with a margin of error they are not too bad.
Thursday I ran a 5m Tempo run and my Garmin had a heart attack (another reason I am doubting my Interval times, it also mucked the first mile from last weekend’s 13.1 race) AND I forget my HR strap, which I hate! #virgo
But according to the Treadmill, it was 8:20, 8:00 and then 3 x 7:40 so again I am not setting the world alight but it is nice to know that I can pull a reasonable run out of the bag. The other thing I need to dial in (by that I mean do!) is run off the bike i.e. a Brick, which is totally new to me. I did a short run after a ride a couple of weeks ago but it was so long after (20 minutes) that it probably had no benefit, so this weekend I’ll be running 30 minutes after a 4-5 hour ride, assuming I last that long on a new saddle…that might be a bit bold!
I like to go with what the Garmin footpod says on the treadmill too, but if you don't have the setting right... meh... then again. it doesn't really matter, does it? consistency, after all, is the key.
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