Life… at full speed.

Yesterday I ran a quick 2 miles. I averaged around 12 minutes/mile.  It was a good run in the middle of the day. 

Tonight I ran 5.5 miles.  The air was cool, about 79 out.  I averaged a just under 15 min mile pace.  

Last Sunday I ran a Sprint Triathlon in Salem Ma.  It was a wonderful experience.  Here is the break down – .5 miles swim, 13 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run.  I went into dreading the swim, water temp was 65 degrees, thinking I would recover on the bike ride, and make it through the run.  Boy I had it all backwards. 

The swim: 

It was freaking COLD!!!  During the swim, I have to give credit to my family for helping me finish, even through they where thousands of miles away. The water so cold all the way through I just kept thinking about them as I swam. I finished the swim in about 20 minutes. 

The bike: 

This was the hardest part for me. Probably cause I was not on my own bike. Not to say I was on a bad bike, it was a really nice bike, but it was not tuned for me. 13 miles is a long, beautiful ride.  It was hilly which didn’t help either.  I have to give credit to Ryan Reed, what a pal, this guy can bike.   He lent me his bike, and he used his wife’s bike and he was still doing circles around me!!

The run: 

This was the easiest part once I got going. RR and I ran together and he was polite enough to let me finish first. 

I really enjoyed this event.  I hope to have some pics of this event some time soon.  I’ll post them when I get them.

Remember the story about the turtle and the rabbit on a race.   Do you remember who won?  The rabbit was fast!  So fast that he would fly down the street and pass up the turtle, only to be distracted and do something off the path.   Meanwhile the turtle would keep at it, a steady pace for sure.   Last nights run was much like that, I was the turtle, running based on heart rate, not speed.  What did that buy me?  Distance.   

I went for a run with my co-worker again, as in my prior post, I mentioned that he runs based on heart rate and I was really enjoying that method. We jogged for a nice long loop around Beverly and into Wenham.  We jogged a little over 14 min/mile for about 4.4 miles, this is where it gets fun. 

I was wearing my standard Nike+ unit, here are the results from it:

Here is the stats from the heart rate monitor Ryan was wearing (which is also a GPS):

For those in question on what watch is that, he wears the:

Forerunner® 305

and uses *software* on his mac:

Ascent “GPS Enabled Software”

Tonight after a long tiring day at the office on Boston I went for a run with a friend/co-worker for a 3.2 mile run. I was not used to his method of running, based on your heart rate. (I’m the type that speeds the first mile and takes the rest slow). I was pleasently surprised by this method, after the run, I wanted to do another 3.2.

Here are some pics of beautiful neighborhood we went through.

This morning I went to my weekly spinning class, after an hour of intense cycling, I swam half a mile. 

last night I took a quick run around the track. I felt great to get out and run after a few days off, I would have done more, but it was date night with the wife and I had to get back and shower up. 

18 laps in the pool was my goal, that’s half a mile, 1 lap equal down and back, I was looking forward to this.  Today after work, I went out and finished up the deck, sanding the top railings and then sealing them up, after that I moved everything back on it.   Since we’ve had a couple days of rain, we are one inch away from a our normal yearly rainfall, meaning, we should be just fine on the water front for our area, I mow the lawn.  Dinner and then a nice family walk around the hood.   Oh, you didn’t come here to hear my life story, well, go away then, this is my blog!  

ohhh, swimming, 18 laps, yes! I did it no prob. Was it long, yes.  Was it easy, absolutely not.  Could have I have gone on to do one full mile, you bet.   18 laps took me exactly 25 minutes to complete.  

I went out after work today and sealed my deck, it took 7 gallons. I may put another coat on it since this was it’s first seal since it was built.