I have decided to try my hand at the Canadian Championship 10k next week held at the Toronto Zoo Run. I was debating whether or not I wanted to race in anything big between now and the Scotia Bank Toronto Waterfront Marathon next month, but decided that I want to give the race a go. I have had some pretty good experiences racing in this CRS event... last year my sister Shannon made the trip with me and warmed up with me and Natasha... and it gives me a chance to head back home to Canada.
I'm not quite sure how my fitness will compare with the rest of the field, but I am looking forward to testing the waters.
This week's FITNESS FRIDAY brought me back to the pool with Kim and Ryan for an early AM interval session. Those of you that remember my university training will remember that I used to spend a lot of time in the pool cross-training and rehabbing. Those workouts involved a lot of aqua jogging and a lot of holding my breath. While those workouts definitely benefited me back then, I now believe that full-on swimming workouts fit better into my training plan.
I started swimming with Kim and Ryan in July and feel like I now have a pretty good handle on how to pace myself through the workout. What I love about swimming is that I can get my heart rate up and feel a completely different fatigue than that which I feel during running intervals.
Kim is hardcore... she usually swims 3000m for her workouts, while Ryan and I stick to 2000m (Hey! We started out at a mile in July... so I'm happy with our progress). This morning however, Kim, Ryan and I all did the 2000m workout... and though I'm sure neither Kim nor I would admit this to each other... we were totally racing!
We start all our swim workouts with 200m easy, 200m pull, and 100m flutter kicking.
Then we move into the actual session.
Our intervals usually include several sets of 100s, some 50s even harder, and then some 200s keeping the pace steady. Today there were a lot of 100s.
Finally, the cool down is 200m easy... but Ryan and I usually end up pulling the first 100 to make it go by quicker.
For those of you who want to look into some swim workouts... here is a pretty easy website to start out:
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/swim-cgi/
Nothing like that rubber feeling after a hard swim session!