A new run workout

Eventually, I will be swimming with Salmon Bay on Sunday mornings, but since that doesn't start until November, and I had major cabin fever, I decided to add a new running workout to my run training.

Boyer avenue that runs in front of my house has a very slow slop downhill. I've been told by many runners, that such a hill is great for speed training. The run is about 800m so its perfect for a sprint then walk/jog recovery. My time for the sprint was about 2:45. According to my calculations, I need to get this down to a 2:24. Doable, very doable, especially with some better shoes. I only did three sets this time, decreasing my time each set. I eventually will do 5 and maybe even 10 at some point.

I start training with a cross country group, Club Northwestt, on Tuesday. Really looking forward to it as I've never done cross country, yet this is what I will have to do for the pentathlon. I've also decided to run in the Roman Meal Glove Run back in my hometown, Steilacoom, on October 21st. This was the first run I entered...way back in elementary so it will be a great milestone for me to go back and do this race. Its also the day after our homecoming at Steilacoom. Since I'm the alumni coordinator for our high school, the race will make it quite a homecoming for me to be sure.

Slow, sore swim

I eventually will swim with Salmon Bay Swim Club on Fridays after boxing, but since I don't start it up until November I saved my swim for Saturday. It was a slow, sore swim for sure. The boxing left me with a lot of little sore muscles in my upper body. You know, the muscles you didn't know you had. Swimming seemed to hit all of them too. Overall, the swim felt good though.

The long run and back to boxing

I did an hour long run today to get back into the long run mode. My longest run has been an hour and a half, but I decided to go for an hour this time. Should have gone for the hour and a half! It felt like a walk in the park. I was going at a pretty slow pace, 7.5 minute mile or so. My legs felt awesome the whole way and my breathing barely increased at all. Next time I may throw in some intervals or do it at faster pace.

Turned out, I was glad I just did the hour run after all. I started up my boxing (its actually a "Boxfit" class...no really boxing) class again tonight and I needed every bit of energy I could muster. Boxing has helped a lot in my fencing, particularly with upper body speed and better footwork. It definitely gets you in shape too though. I sweat more in boxing than any other workout I do. I'll be doing the class once a week as crosstraining.

Riding young Dundee

My new training schedule has me doing just a ride on Thursdays, kind of a day off or at least a 'low-key' day in the middle of the week. I found it was pretty hard NOT to do something to fill my time, I almost did a swim but decided to stick to the schedule I've set up. I'm sure I'll come to really appreciate the down day later.

Tonight I rode a new horse, Dundee, who belongs to Julia. Dundee is a pretty young horse off the racetrack. According to Julia he can either be a little slow or quite rascal. The ride actually went really well though. Laura had just spread a shoe turf bail on the barn, so we weren't doing any jumping...we wanted to let the horses get used to the new feel for a while. But the flatwork on Dundee went really well. The trot was incredibly smooth, I felt really relaxed and in control. I didn't have to fight Dundee as much as I did with Pet, Howie and Vesty who were just strong horses that wanted to go fast. We did some straight line work, which Laura was really pleased with and then went into some canter work. The canter was fast to start but it soon settled and we had some great transitions as well. Laura and several other commented that I had a really good ride. Hopefully I can bring this into my rides with Pet and Vesty.

OK run, great fence and plans for escalating both

Did my Greenlake (GL) run tonight. Although it felt great as I was running, I was about 30 seconds behind my last GL time. This may have been because my right leg was still really sore from fencing on Monday. Regardless, I will be working on bringing this back down. I did get a chance to talk with Jesse, one of the Greenlake runners who coordinates the cross-country group which meets on Tuesday night. There are also a couple of cross-country events coming up that I can drop in to watch and get a feel for. I may even enter the second one on the 28th. We'll see. In any case, with structured coaching in both general running and cross-country, I should see my times start to drop more.

Fencing went really well tonight. I won 3 out of 4 bouts that I fenced, losing 15-14 to a visiting fencer who is a B level fencer from the east coast. My point control seems to be getting a lot better and I am much more relaxed and diverse with my attacks. After my bouts, I spoke a while with Alan Evans about starting a training plan. Alan is a great coach and is really into what he does. He also knows Mike, one of the former pentathletes in the Seattle area and knows a few of the other pentathletes from the fencing circuit. I'm really looking forward to starting up with him.

First triple: ride, swim, run

I had my first triple workout today starting with an afternoon ride, then a swim in the evening, followed by a run. I not only survived, I performed pretty well getting a training personal best (TPB) in swimming and very close to one in running. They are not competitive times yet, but getting closer.

I rode Vesty today for riding. Looks like I'll be riding Vesty for flat work and Pet for jumping for a while which is great because both will allow me to progress in the respective skills. I had the usual issues/games with Vesty starting up, had to get a whip even to really get him going well...didn't have to use it, just make sure he knew that I had it. We had some struggles when it came to getting his head down and keeping the rythem, but once we got past these issues and into the canter all was well. The canter transitions are still a little messy, but there getting there. Vesty is very good a predicting my moves so he's usually a little ahead of the actual commands which is why he wants to rush in to the transitions. By the end of the session though, we were as smooth as butta.

The swim went really well. I got my 50m time down to 36 seconds, etching ever closer to the target 30 seconds. My 100m was once again a 1:20 which needs to get down to a 1:00 or so. The rest of the swim felt great as well both in strength and technique. I'm looking forward to starting up with Salmon Bay...hopefully this Friday.

With two sports down, I went into the run not expecting much. My legs were sore from my first day back fencing on Monday, and riding and swimming certainly took their told as well. BUT...it felt great! I didn't fatigue at all ended up coming in at 20:04 which was 5 seconds faster than my last Portage Bay time! It is still not the sub 20 I was looking for, but closer.

Pretty pleased for my first triple. I should be able to do three events in the same order as the actual pentathlon...swim, ride, run. On Saturdays, I may even be able to pull off a full pentathlon practice.

The fast track and first fencing in a while

The pool was closed today due to heating/electrical problems so I went right to my track workout this afternoon. I took 20 seconds off my mile time and actually felt pretty good after the mile. I'll be keeping track of my 1/4 mile, mile and 3K times from now on to track my progress. I'll be starting to do some cross-country running soon too to get more experience in that. Should be able to do this with the Greenlake group on Wednesdays, but I will also enter some races as well.

Fencing tonight went well considering it was my first time fencing in about a month. I did the half hour footwork drills and then fenced three bouts, winning all three. I fenced one of the young whippersnapper foilists right off the bat. Foilists, especially very good young ones, have a very different style...they hop around a lot and like to wip a lot and this guy was a classic case. But I beat him in the end. Did pretty well against the the other fencers, but once again, George - one of our senior fencers - kept me humble. I beat him, but just barely at 13-15. Since I didn't want to push my lunging legs and arm too much on my first night back I just watched others fence for the rest of the night. We'll see how my legs feel tomorrow.