"The last crazy thing I did"

A swim and run down at Pacific Grove

Today involved and early morning start and by early I mean early! The team was to meet down at Pacific Groove (home of the kelp crawl) for a swim and long run at 8am. Luckily I was carpooling so didn't have to be fully coherent for the drive down. We got there early and the weather was no how you expect it to be from a post card, it was decidedly gray and cold, though good for running, but not very inviting for a swim. There was some discussion on whether the swim would take place or not, it was planned to be a long swim, more of a short mental toughness exercise. The decision was made to go ahead with the swim, although not the whole team were taking part I decided not to past opportunity to get into the freezing cold water and attempt a swim.

The water was indeed cold, I swam with head out of the water nearly all the way to the turnaround point. On way back I my motoviation to take the plunge and put my head was so I could swim faster and get out of the water quicker.

After drying off I headed out with my team mates on the run, the weather was perfect it was overcast and cool. I started off at a good pace and kept it going all the way to the turn around point at mile 7, where a support station was setup. On the way back I picked up the pace a little, though this was my longest run since Wildflower and was a little uncertain how my legs would. Has headed towards the mile 11 I could feel the pain creeping in so I decided to walk for a bit. Realizing walking was just as uncomfortable I decided run the remaining couple miles, overall not a bad pace and dip in the ocean to cool the legs was nice. It was a actually a good confidence builder, as my longest run recently has been only 7 miles before this.

Of course after a run like this, there is nothing better than putting your legs right back into that freezing cold water which started the day...



Run Details (Click here to view on Google Earth):
Distance 14miles
2hr 5mins
9:23min Avg Pace
5:24min Best Pace
950 feet of climbing.
151bpm Avg. Heart Rate
176bpm Max Heart Rate

Labels: Running, Swimming

posted by Nick @ 10:00 PM Comments: 0