Negative Splits

Wow - it has been a busy week at work. Thursday morning I had to come into work early, which meant that there was no time for a pre-work workout unless it was at an ungodly hour. I packed my clothes and thought that I might go after work, because I was planning to leave an hour early if possible. I don't enjoy going to the gym in the evenings nearly as much as I enjoy in the mornings. By the end of my day at work, I am ready to go home and relax. So all day long yesterday I struggled with the idea of going to the gym. I kept saying to myself that I could just do my run outside on Saturday because it would be nice out because was have had a nice warm streak. Well, in the long run, even after I didn't really get off work early, I convinced myself to not to give myself excuses and I went yesterday. I am so proud of myself for just doing it. Now, I have my Saturday free and it is supposed to pour rain and be colder, which means I wouldn't have been able to run outside anyway.

The gym was really warm yesterday - I think the building was having trouble adjusting to the warmer temperatures outside. It was pretty uncomfortable but not unbearable. Because I had all the time in the world last night, I decided to do 3 miles yesterday, so that I could establish my base rate. I am super happy with how it went - I give it a 9 out of 10. I pushed myself hard and had a decent time for not having completed 3 miles since last spring.

I did my 3 mile run with the goal of producing negative splits. Normally, I like negative split training because I think that it is easier mentally and that at times you are able to push yourself harder and it can lead to strong results. In this case, I think that this method of training could be really important for my triathlon. My thought is that after the swim and bike my legs are going to be dead. I can't imagine that the beginning portion of my run will be very fast. But I figure that if I am used to doing negative splits both physically and mentally, then on the day of the triathlon by the time I find my running legs at a lower pace and warm them up I will be ready to get moving faster towards the finish line.

Workout:

5 min warm-up - 3.5 speed, 2.5 incline.

3 miles - total time 32:49. (including the treadmill warm-up to run lag of about 20 seconds).

first 10 minutes at 5.1 (11:45 mile)

Then up 1 beat every 2 minutes until 5.7.

Stayed at 5.7 for 4 minutes, then at 5.8 for 4 minutes.

Then up 1 beat every 2 minutes until 30 minutes.

After that I kept pushing harder until the 3 mile mark. Ended at a 6.2 (9:50 mile).

A few minutes of cool down and then leg stretches.