Friday, March 13, 2009

Toasted Legs

One thing that running Ultra’s have taught me is how to train on tired legs. Very tired legs. Once you mentally can overcome this than your body will follow. Now don’t get me wrong, tired legs make for a hard run but still it can be done. Lots of one-on-one talks with myself with even a few tears to reach this point.

This week I dished out some hard workouts to my legs. After the ride on Tuesday with the Spinner Group I knew my 7 mile run on Wednesday would be hard. I ventured out in a new direction from my house with the first mile being fairly flat. This would not last. As I came over the top of the first hill it drops down only to reveal a long upward section. Repeat another drop down and the next section is a three hill build (2 mile stretch). Great way to wake the legs! I told myself that my only goal was not to walk regardless of what my pace dropped to, which I didn’t, but as I neared the last mile I began to do the math on my pace and was more surprised to see that I had maintained an average 9:02 pace for the run. With those hills I was one happy, tired girl.

Yesterday was another cycle day. After a 15 minute power nap (Scott was hoping I had dropped off into a coma) we headed out for what we would call a recovery ride (22 total miles). Not sure how anything can be considered recovery when all you have are hills… hills… and WIND. After a few miles of warm-up we settled into a nice effort and got the miles in without any problems. The wind was a killer for the last 5 miles. This pretty much finished us off. We slivered off our bikes, had a hot meal (crock pots rock), hot bath, and then settled in for the evening.

Since rain is in the forecast the entire weekend I am joining both Cheri, and Susan for a muddy trail run in the morning. Hope my rest day today does the trick. Sunday will be a spin on the trainer.

Rinse and repeat next week. :)
Robin

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice job with the run. Have fun this weekend.

Anonymous said...

Right on! Looks like your back in your hard core trainings mode!

Have a wondful weekend!

Marcy said...

Ummmm yeah you is a crazy one ;-)

Have a great weekend chica!

Marlene said...

Those are some serious workouts. Great pace on the run!

Have a nice weekend. :)

Mel-2nd Chances said...

have a great weekend, great job on the runs & training!

Judi said...

you do not suck at fund raising. you just need to use your blog more. you have a lot of readers. be a bit demanding.

have a good trail run.

Anonymous said...

You are doing great. The muddy trail run sounds like fun!

jen said...

You are such an inspiration! Have a great muddy run this weekend. :)

Runner Mom said...

Awesome job, chickadee! See you in the morning!! I'll be trying some new cytomax! Time to practice with the good stuff!
Hugs,
susan

Shannon said...

You rock and have shades of craziness. I digg it, I'm like that too. Will you be my friend? Putting the CD in the mail TODAY!

Caroline Novak said...

Wow, hard core training that's for certain. Amazing pace you kept up on all those hills. Inspiring!

ShirleyPerly said...

Excellent run pace, esp. with the hills and after that group ride!

My coach had me do my first recovery ride after a run this week. It was to be done entirely in the small chain ring and at high cadence for an hour. On this one windy section, I think I was going only like 13-14mph. Nice not to worry much about pace :-)

Laurel @ Ducks in a Row said...

I just found your blog and think you are such an inspiration - I'm going to become a follower for sure.

Unknown said...

I have a brilliant idea. Tie a concrete block to your running shoes. Run for 10 miles. Take those concrete blocks off and you will feel like running on air for a long time. Hmmm.. Bad thought! Scratch that!

Hope you are having a nice weekend!

Stuart said...

Nice pace, you know that's a sub 10 50 right ;-)

RunToTheFinish said...

wow 22 miles for recovery, you are amazing!

Wes said...

Ultra running will prepare you well for the Ironman marathon :-) Nothing like coming off the bike and having a marathon staring you in the face!

Felice Devine said...

Great job! Hope you had a nice weekend!