New Year’s Eve Double
We flew back from California yesterday. We took off at 7:40AM and didn’t get home until nearly 6PM. Spending the entire day in the airplane is pretty beat, but we were fortunate to get upgraded and the flight was really easy. Elizabeth and I both slept for parts of the flight. Also, unlike the flight out there, Charlie slept just about the entire way. (The picture below is with my parents when they dropped us off at the airport.)
This morning, I got up early and took Charlie out for a walk. Then I went to the pool for my first workout of the day. I did the session and felt pretty strong, but it certainly wasn’t my best swim of the month. My main set was 5×300, then 5×150, all of it at my T-pace. I didn’t wear a watch in the pool, but based on the clock at the pool, unlike Thursday’s swim in San Diego, my pace for all of the sets was closer to 1:44/100 than 1:35 or 1:40. It was also generally tougher than other recent swims. Hopefully, it was a combination of the cumulative effect from this week’s training, dehydration and being tired from the travel. Regardless of that…
This afternoon, after Myles Gordon’s first birthday party, I went for a run in the Park. Elizabeth and I met up with Emily at the Equinox on 63rd and Lex and jogged over to the Park. Once we were there, I split off from them at a pretty quick pace – I’m not sure what I was running, but I’m guessing it was a little faster than 7:00. About 10 or 12 minutes into the run, I did the first of my pick-ups. If my “normal” pace was 7:00, then during my pick-ups I was running much closer to 6:00. That pick-ups felt great. I ended up doing six of them, with “normal” pace running in between. I did a total of 10 minutes at the pick-up pace. With about a half-mile or so to go in my run, I caught up with one of the faster runners I saw out there. We started talking and he told me that he had just gotten off a flight from Johannesburg and was in town for New Years. We started talking marathons and he mentioned that “these days” he was running about 3:30, but his best was 2:36! That certainly caught my attention. I asked if he was training for anything these days and he told me his next race is Ironman New Zealand. I asked if he’d done other Ironman distance races, he responded affirmatively and said he’d done 20-25 of them, and had spent some time as a pro. He wished me luck at Placid. I didn’t catch his name, but it was fun talking and running with him. (It was doubly nice because I was keeping up with him, and in fact, really slowed down to run with him. That’s not to say that he couldn’t have smoked me if he wanted to…)
Tomorrow’s an off day, I’ll pick it up again on either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my recovery from tonight!
Swim – December 31
Distance: 3,250 yards
Time: 1:10
Run – December 31
Distance: 5.5 miles
Time: 42:43
Average heart rate: 153
Course: Central Park lower loop
Conditions: Clear, cold, low 40’s, wind