Change of Plans

I woke up this morning and decided to skip the hour I was planning at the pool today. I was still tired after eight hours sleep and my back was aching before I even got out of bed. I slept a bit later and decided to save up my energy for tonight's group run.

I took advantage of the free time and hit JackRabbit (yes, again) to look for the perfect wetsuit. As usual, the guy that helped me was extremely knowledgeable and spent over 1.5 hours helping me choose a suit. Since trying on wetsuits is a fairly grueling effort, he also set up a big fan to keep me from fainting in the tiny dressing room in a sea of rubber. I tried three sleeveless suits, one of which was just right, and one full suit just to be sure. I chose the Blue Seventy Reaction, a nice sleeveless suit that is relatively easy to get on and had the best fit for me. I rented it for the weekend so I can try it out in the pool before committing to buying it. If all goes well, I'll own the suit on Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to seeing the difference the buoyancy makes. I was again told tales of the guy that floated the race last year. I wonder if he knows how legendary his story has become?

The JackRabbit group run tonight was really fun. We did a four-mile Indian Run, which I was correct in describing yesterday. We divided into three groups again by pace. Since my foot has been acting up, I dropped from the B group - 8:01-9:00 - to the C group - everything above 9:00. We ran from Columbus Circle to 72nd (about a half-mile) for a warm up at a very easy pace, then began the Indian Run. Our coach shared our pace a few times and it ranged from 8:30 at faster times to 9:30 at others. However, there were points where we were literally piling up on one another and it felt like a 10:00 or slower to me. There were about 10 people in the group and five of us were definitely a bit faster so we had a tendency to speed things up and force the coach to slow us down.

This was the first run where I felt really good, likely from the super-slow pace. I never really got out-of-breath and my foot thankfully didn't hurt. There were moments where I felt a bit of pressure in my heel as though it were threatening to hurt, but it never reached that point, even on my sprints. I'm hoping the five or more times I stretch each day plus the foot strengthening exercises are paying off.

I'm visiting my sister in DC this weekend where training will most certainly take a lesser priority. Since I'm leaving early tomorrow, I haven't yet decided what my plan for the morning will be. I might hit the pool one last time for the week, I may do a short ride, or I may just be lazy and sleep in. I will be swimming in DC on Sunday to test drive my new wetsuit and I'm running a four-mile race on Monday so I won't be taking the entire weekend off. But I most certainly will be enjoying the breaks in between.

Sport - Interval Running
Distance - 4 miles, plus about 1 mile warm up/cool down
Time - Not sure, I forgot to time it (likely around 45-50 minutes total)