Lonely Fartleks

Today was different because of Mary Anne's work schedule. I had child transport duties this morning, and had to create my own solo fartlek workout instead of rolling around the lake with the herd.

This morning, I visited Gold's again, for core and upper body weights. Even though it appeared that I was lifting weights with stick-figure arms, I completed a single set workout of everything at various reduced weight and reps. Pleasant soreness was the result. Again, they didn't call my bluff and kick me out as some sort of interloper, so I guess I'll just have to keep going.

This evening, after delivering Sarah to All-City Band rehearsals down south at Covington M.S., I decided to use the intervening time before going back to pick her up by running a fartlek workout around LBLake. I arbitrarily chose a 10 minute warmup, 10 x 1:00 fartleks with 1:00 rest, and then cooldown running from the end of that back to my starting point. The Congress Ave. loop was my turf tonight. It was 85 degrees, according to the trusty car thermometer, but it felt much more pleasant than that on the trail. I guess it was a combo platter of lake effect, breezes, and copious shade along the route. Nice, though.

Without a gang to bounce paces off of, I just picked things up on the accelerations to some perceived level of effort, and then backed off, after that initial warmup. I'm sure I had that focused frown going during the tougher bits, but I was happy that I pushed through and finished the entire workout as I had mapped it. I ended up with something like 7:40/mile pace on the 10 minutes of accelerations, and 9:20/mile or so for the entire loop, including cooldown and warmup miles. 4.82 miles, 44:32. Avg HR was up there, but lower than it was for the 400s last Wednesday.

I saw Carrie out there, putting in some recovery miles just 10 days after her AZ Ironman dream race. I told her it was too early to be out there already, and she just shrugged. Those triathletes are just a different breed, I guess. You need to read her blog about that race. She was amazing!

So, another day of honest physical work, another drop in the physiological bucket, another baby step back towards fitness. Onward.