Volunteering, Biking and Swimming

Saturday morning found me up early to complete my final task in order to qualify for entrance into the New York 2011 Marathon (gulp!). I've already run the 9 NYRR races, but I needed to do my part and volunteer for a race. My friend, Lisa, suggested that being a bike marshal was the best way to go. I signed up for Saturday's Dash & Splash 10K race (with the splash being in Lasker Pool after the race was over).

Of course, in typical fashion, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to bike quickly enough and the lead runner would pass me by, so I did some research on the fastest 10K times and quickly realized that I should have no trouble at all finishing ahead of the runners. Which is good, because I know that some people are really fast runners, but I'd be a little embarrassed if they could run faster than I could bike.

It ended up that there were 5 of us bike riders on Saturday morning. We went out in teams of two ahead of the lead truck (which stayed in front of the lead male runner). I was in the second wave of bikers. We were given whistles and told to clear all runners/walkers/etc. from the course in advance of the race. I have to tell you, it's not that easy to whistle and yell at people while riding your bike and trying to pay attention to everything else.

However, I had a ton of fun! Something about blowing a whistle and waving frantically at someone and telling (okay, I was yelling!) them to move out of the way was really fun. It was crazy to me how oblivious people are while wearing their headphones. Of course, some people were a little bit nasty when I was asking them to move out of the way, but I guess that's to be expected.

After finishing up with the volunteering, I did some more biking in the Park. I hadn't started my watch for the race and since I had such a nice time, I decided to just do the same thing for the rest of my ride and not be worried about anything other than spending some time on the bike. I ended up doing about 20 miles total, which I think seems like an okay number for the day.

Sunday I finally made it to the Terrier swim practice. I haven't been "real" swimming in a really long time. I figured maybe I should get one good swim in before the triathlon this coming weekend. I actually dropped my bike off at Toga to have them give it a tune up and also put a second bottle cage on (since mine fell off in San Francisco) and picked it up after practice, so it was really a two-for one kind of afternoon.

I got to practice a little bit early and was worried that I was going to end up with no coach. I knew that I'd get in and swim either way, but I was glad when Julia showed up a couple of minutes late and gave us a pretty good workout! Here's what we did:

300 Swim Warm-Up
2 x 150 Kick / Drill / Swim (50 of each)
2 x 50 Build

450 (Done as 9 x 50 with bilateral breathing on the 3-5-7, no rest in between 50s)
8 x 25 Breath control 2 x 4-3-2-1
4 x 200 race pace (:20 rest)

100 Swim Cool-Down

The 450 set wasn't easy. I sort-of hate bilateral breathing as a general rule, so I wasn't overly excited to do it today. I know that it's good race practice, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. On the last 50 where were were supposed to be breathing every 7 strokes, I definitely had to cut it short twice and only go 5 strokes. Oh well. Not the end of the world. I still took my breath on the left!

On the last 25, Julia told us that if someone could make it with taking no breaths, we could skip the 4 x 50s fast that she had written into the workout. I have to tell you that I was fine with sacrificing that 200 yards for the one 25. There actually only ended up being 4 of us at practice (it was during the World Cup game) and three of the four of us made it without taking a breath. Thank goodness!

I actually did the same thing that I did yesterday at the bike ride and didn't turn on my watch. Since we started a little late and ended about 2 minutes early, I'd guess that we were probably only swimming about 50 minutes today. Still, it felt great to get back into the pool and I'm glad that I got one good swim workout in before the race.

Biking
Distance: ~ 20.00 miles

Swimming
Time: 50:00
Distance: 2350 yards = 1.33 miles
Pace: 37:35/mile