March 4, 2013

Monday Interval training with Cardiff Tri

Tonight I did my first running training with Cardiff Tri.  I had no idea what I was in for and it was a bit of a shock.  I do interval training on the treadmill - 20 seconds at a time.  This was 2 minutes at speed and 2 minutes recovery.  I knew I was in for trouble when the 6 minute jog to warm up was at 9:30 minute mile pace.  That's not a jog for me - that's a run.

I sometimes wonder why I picked triathlon and I think it's because I don't know what I want to do and triathlon is the perfect outlet for indecisiveness*.  There are a lot of people who are good at running who get into tri for the challenge... a few people who are originally swimmers, and some people who are originally cyclists.  In fact I think, through no science at all, that the split is like this:

Runners: 60
Bikers: 30
Swimmers: 10

Anyways, I managed to run 6.1 miles today, which is longer than I've ever been out before.  I kind of lost the will to "interval" after about 6 goes, but I did keep on moving, and that was victory enough.

The cool thing about triathlon - or maybe just Cardiff Tri - is that everyone is friendly and supportive.  At the 2 minutes everyone ran off and I fell steadily behind, after 2 minutes they used recovery to come back and find me, 2 minutes later they sprinted off again.

I'm not sure if I was really ready to do the interval training yet - doing 6 miles of interval training as the next step up from 3 mile fun runs was a bit intense.

On the other hand, at this rate I can just double again to 12 miles and I'll be ready for a half marathon in a few short weeks!

The good thing about being so rubbish on the first try is that I can only get better.

I didn't get a photo but this is how I felt after:


*If only triathlon was quadrathalon and included flying trapeze.  Or pentathlon but instead of all the running and jumping included lightweight barbells and push-ups.  (editors note: my brewer half just commented that I would still be bad at it.  He's probably right.  He keeps it real.)

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