Apparently, not only did I start from someone else’s house, but then I proceeded to cut through a few peoples’ yards rather than follow the road.  Then, rather than following the logical course around the lake, I took an angular route through more yards before getting back on the course.  Weird.  I don’t remember doing that.  The good thing is that SportTracks does a pretty good job of route error correction and fixed the route to show that I did the full 6 miles.

Maybe this is just a sign of things to come.

Anyway, I had a good 6 mile run yesterday, followed by a nice and easy 10 miler this morning.  It is very nice to be building up my running base again.  This will be my first week in a long time where I will surpass 30 running miles.  YAY!

Tomorrow is the Ludington Triathlon, so time to get all packed up and ready.

For the workout, I programmed the steps into my Garmin with a threshold of zone 5 set for each of the intervals.  This way, during the workout, I could check in between intervals to make sure that I met my goal of zone 5 heart rate on the previous interval.  It is so cool to be able to focus on the workout without having to constantly keep an eye on the a timer.

As for the “brain” part of my workout, it was more a brainless part.  I did two bone headed things.  The first was that I forgot to bring water with me.  While it was a short workout, it was 80 degrees out and running on the track put me in constant sun.  The second thing was even more bone headed.  I put on my iPod, queued up my music and then never hit play. So, I did my entire workout wearing an iPod as purely a fashion statement.

My swim workout was slightly less eventful, however, much more congested.  It is getting pretty ridiculous up at the pool because two other local pools are closed for the summer which has really increased usage at EGR.  I’m going to look into possibly doing an OWS up at Reeds Lake or Millennium Park with a group of people.

I couldn’t find a video (Youtube you have failed me), but I leave you with this:

KRAMER: Got problems Jerry.

JERRY: What happened?

KRAMER: Well I had been swimming for three hours and I was in a real groove so I decided to keep going. But at ten they start the aquasize. Thirty-five geriatrics throwing elbows. It was like I was swimming through a flabby armed spanking machine.

JERRY: How long did that last?

KRAMER: A half hour. Then diving class started. Well, that got a little messy. I gotta find a new place to swim ’cause that pool can’t hold me, Jerry.

From http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheNap.html

As you should be able to see in the picture, this was a pretty easy workout to program.  I basically just set it up to notify me of the times I needed to go at each leg of the workout, however, there is the ability to program it based on distance, intensity, heart rate, etc.  Once programmed, I simply transferred the workout my watch.  From the watch I selected the workout as I headed out.

On the ride, it started with the warm up leg, so it basically just counted down from 27 minutes for me.  Five seconds before the warm up was done, the watch started beeping to let me know the next step was coming up.  I was able to gear up and push hard for 20 seconds before it beeped at me again to let me know I was the recovery part of the interval.  This continued for the next 6 intervals and was extremely helpful as I never had to actually look at my watch during the workout.  The most difficult part of the workout was making sure that I didn’t get held up by traffic or stop lights during the 20 seconds of power intervals.

The best part of the workout feature is when you complete the last leg of the workout, the watch plays a chime to signify you have finished and displays “Congratulations, Workout Completed”!  My only complaint is that it seems to stop tracking distance once you have completed the workout.  Because the workout was based on time, it was difficult to estimate exactly where I would be when the 27 minute warm down was finished.  It ended up that I was still about a mile away from home when I “completed” the workout, so I got short changed a mile on my total distance.

As for the heart rate monitor, I don’t know why it has taken me so long to use it.  When I first put it on, I thought it would be uncomfortable during the ride, but I actually forgot about it until I got home.  I am going to have to give it a try on my next long run.  Although, I don’t think I would want to wear for too long of a time, as I am sure that it just adds another possible chafing spot.

Here is my heart rate during the workout.  The vertical yellow lines represent the power intervals, which is why they the higher points on the chart.  You can also see where the hills where during the warm up and warm as they crank up the heart rate.

Tomorrow is my 2nd swim workout of the week along with my first run workout since the marathon.  My legs feel great today, but my hamstring could probably use one more day.