Intensity

Intensity was the “thought word” for the day I was looking at IL times and having a small fear/freak out moment. I was wondering how I’d ever keep up, and if I was going to make a fool of myself.

And of course, I knew the answer to “have I bitten off more than I can chew?”

No, in fact, I wasn’t quite biting off enough!

I need to up my intensity.

Essentially with 66 days left to go, I don’t have time to just plod along and dilly dally! I should not be working at a pace that I feel I can do all day! I need to get the speeds up, the distances up and FAST! I need to work hard and get working at race pace!

This week I did two workouts of higher intensity and really felt the benefits.

First was a row on the machine to act as my swim. I rowed Monday for only 14 minutes (I was aiming at 15, but just couldn’t do it) and I pushed to get out 1km in that time, and keep my stroke rate over 33, preferably up around 37. Normally I sit on a 27ish stroke rate, and am singing along to whatever song is playing. But not so on Monday! I was *grunting* to push out the last three minutes! I was working *hard* and it felt good!

And today, after a great 1 hour horse ride (where TK was actually *almost* fast!), I went for a 5km run and I pushed myself hard with intervals. I tried to run faster than I normally do and then at every 5 minute mark I sprinted for 30 seconds.

And the result was a Personal Best! Almost a full 2 minutes faster than my previous personal best!

Now I may not go out and try these intervals with my 12km run just yet, but I hope it will help me improve my speed over the whole distance! I might just learn to be a faster runner!

If I do at least one session of each discipline each week with the intensity cranked I think I’ll be ready to take this race on at a pace that I can be proud of!