Back at it

My upper calves were ridiculously tight on Monday so I ended up taking the day completely off. I woke up this morning not feeling much better so I decided not to swim. A little 2-day recovery is probably good for me anyways, especially since I have some intense workouts planned for this weekend.

I went straight to the track from work for the normal Tuesday interval workout. On the docket today was 6 x 800 meters (3 min recovery). I had a rough 2.5 mile warm up and couldn't really loosen up, so I decided to keep my trainers on and not use the flats today, just letting my body go as fast as was comfortable. In my head, I figured that meant keeping everything between 2:25 - 2:30, and it started off that way. On the first 800, I was so tight that the first couple strides actually hurt and I thought about stopping. I trudged through the first 4oo in 74, and then started to loosen up and came home in 71. I made sure to go right into a brisk jog between each interval (about 7 min mile pace for the recovery) so I wouldn't tighten up. This was key as I kept getting faster with each rep. The splits were much faster than expected: 2:25, 2:22, 2:21, 2:20, 2:20, 2:18. Given that I was in trainers, and my legs were exhausted from last weekend, this was a very nice workout.

After my 3 mile warm-down, I got to do something I haven't done since college. Karen's husband Damien sells portable ice baths (www.ozperformance.com) and brought them to the track today. So after my workout, I got to jump in a 45 degrees ice bath for 10 minutes (waste down). I'm feeling so much better now and all tightness in the legs is gone. As I tell anyone who will listen, the solution to everything is ice.