Yoga and track

Brain dump time.
I took Metro to and from work today for the first time since before tri camp at the beginning of the month. OMG I did not miss it at all. Granted, it was nice to give my legs a rest from a bike commute, but maddening at the same time to commute 2+ hours just to go 12 miles round trip. Ridiculous.

I gave yoga a shot for the first time on Monday. Success = not falling over when doing the Warrior Pose. It actually felt really nice to stretch and yoga is a legitimate strength training workout judging from the way my arms and legs were shaking while trying to hold poses and how much concentration it took not to lose my balance. I will definitely go back.

I had another track workout this week. I ran track in high school - the 400 and the 800 (standalone and relays) and today I'm now a good 20 seconds slower on the 400 and almost 40 seconds slower in the 800 than I was my senior year of high school. I was lamenting this fact to Jen in my Training Peaks feedback and her response was to not compare myself to high school because that is just depressing. Yup. Agreed. I will say this, track work is just as hard today as it was in high school, even if I've become a slow old lady. I had descending intervals for my 800s today and I mentally cracked on my second to last one, completely fell apart about 150m from the finish. I think I started off too fast on that one and by the end, I couldn't fathom doing another repeat, even if it was just one more. I still managed to make the intended split, used my easy 400 jog to pull my head together, and the last one felt much better. I love/hate track work. I love how it feels to work hard and make a go at keeping a challenging pace. I hate it when I start too fast and feel like I'm crawling at the finish. I love how it makes me tougher. I hate sounding like a freight train going around the track because I'm trying to suck in enough oxygen to keep my legs turning over. And I do love how much the track workouts wear me out and I leave feeling absolutely spent - and continue to feel the slight burn in my legs for the remainder of the day.