A bit of company

Out for a bit of a run this morning, very pleasant. I made a bit of a bold call and went running with a guy from work. He has expressed interest in coming running before, but I am always a bit cautious about bringing other people along, particularly people from work. It sounds harsh, but there are few things more frustrating than having your session derailed by having to wait for somebody who overestimates their abilities.

Anyway, this guy from work flies a bit below the radar, but the impression you get from talking to him is that he does a fair bit of exercise, so I thought I would invite him along. Besides he was willing to do my session rather than wanting to do something else, so that was a big plus.

How did it go? Well the brief version is that if this morning was him when he isn't running fit, I need to make sure I never run with him when he is running fit.

He suffered a bit towards the end and had to slow, but turning up and running for 90 minutes off the bat is a pretty solid effort. From the pace we were holding early in the run, you can tell he is a pretty solid runner, he certainly had me questioning just what I had gotten myself into. He definitely wasn't holding me up. It was nice to get out running with somebody again as well. Particularly somebody who knows what they are doing. Might have to do it again sometime.

The run was a return to Ironman running, made up of a number of 5km intervals (pieces??). It felt pretty good. Whilst the pace was nice and solid it felt really pretty comfortable. I was pleasantly surprised. Particularly because yesterday I was still hobbling around like an old man after my long ride on Sunday.

I would feel reasonably comfortable to say I am running as well as I was around Mandurah 70.3. It is feeling pretty good. I am keen to maintain that comfort and confidence all the way to Ironman Melbourne. I was feeling like this a few weeks out from Ironman WA, but then a few sessions closer to the race shook me a little bit. This time round I want to try and avoid that. My plan is to try and not over think the training too much. I race best when I am training hard, so I am planning on keeping it simple, keep working hard and not give myself excuses. The other advantage I have over IMWA is that by the time I was doing this sort of session before Ironman WA I was two weeks out from race day. I still have the better part of 5 weeks before Melbourne, so I have a lot more time to get comfortable and confident with the distances necessary for Ironman.

I have my suspicions that part of the reason that running felt good this morning was that I got heaps of sleep last night. Not sure why, but the stars just aligned to allow me to get into bed nice and early. The impact of sleep deprivation on training quality is not news to me. But it is lesson that I often need reminding of. Between getting kids in bed, doing my nightly stretching and strength work etc, sometimes it can be pretty tough to get into bed. But the way I felt this morning reminded me that it is worth the effort. Then on top of that this article came up on Facebook this morning.

Importance of Sleep

Hmmmm, timely.

Nothing on the program for this afternoon, so I will be making an effort to be heading to bed nice and early again.