A regular run went fast...

Today was a relatively light day of training. I only had a running speed work session and because my left calf is sore, I just planned on doing a regular run for about an hour instead of the speed work, exactly what I did last week. I had two big pieces of Lasagna for dinner and tried to sleep it off for about 90 minutes before I ran. It didn't help. By the time I started my run I could still feel the lasagna in my stomach and it felt like it weighted 10 lbs.

Once I got running, after the first 8 minutes my calf felt sore but was not getting worse. I decided to pick up the pace and by the 10 minute point my heart rate was anaerobic. I decided to continue to go fast and used my quads and relax my calf. I started feeling good and my heart rate started climbing from the 140's to the 150's. At the 2 mile point I started to go harder, my heart rate got up to the 160's and I could feel the start of lactic acid building in my quads. At the half way point, I was well into the 160's and it didn't drop down until I finished. I ran through the lactic acid build up right until the end, I ran through the pain and didn't let it slow me down. The final result was that I did 7 miles at a 7:26 pace. Last week I did the same route at a 8:54 pace and could hardly walk afterwards. Today, I could walk, but the calf was sore, about a 6 on 10.

I was so glad that I was able to get in a running speed work session, especially before the Ironman. Speed work is so critical in putting stress on your body so that you race well. In the Ironman I will never go as fast as my speed work sessions, but that speed work stress will help me to run slower for a long period of time. Being able to do this speed work session has really helped my confidence and makes me feel that I'm better preparing myself for the Ironman.

One other bonus was that I got home about 5 minutes after it just started to rain, then it came down HARD with thunder and lighting. If I was going slower, I would have been caught in it.