Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Goin' on a Bear Hunt

When I was in Girl Scouts, there was a song we used to sing called "Goin' on a Bear Hunt." In the song, you go looking for a bear and encounter a bunch of obstacles along the way - lake, cave, stuff like that. One verse went like this:

Ooh, looky!
What is that?
It's a swamp-a!
Can't go over it.
Can't go under it.
Can't go around it.
We gotta go through it!


When I headed out for last night's track workout, it was so horrendously humid, I immediately thought, "It's a swamp-a!" And that workout wasn't going away, so... "We gotta go through it!"

After running to the track, I did 3 x 1600, with a goal pace between 8:20 and 8:30 a mile. I was supposed to do 1 minute rest intervals, but I did bump that up a bit because I needed a bit of extra time to recover and drink from my water bottle.

I was completely drenched in sweat, and my hair curled up like Will Ferrel's in Semi-Pro. It was so nasty out that I did something I do not usually do - I took my shirt off. Luckily the black sports bra and black skirt looked like an actual outfit.

Here are my swamp splits:
8:27
8:15
8:20

That second mile was a bit of an experiment. I picked up my pace a bit on the straightaways, then slowed a bit on the curves. My main goal in doing this was to break things up a bit and help me resist the urge to just sit in the shade. Obviously, it worked better than just that!

3 comments:

Marcy said...

Looking good chica!! Really good! I hear you on the extra recovery. Yesterday I had repeats with 200m RI and I practically crawled them so I'd be able to finish in one piece. The heat and humidity really does you in.

The 311 Boys Mom said...

Rock on!!! you were cruising & if your humidity was anything like ours (michigan), it felt liek you were walking out into the wet air, like rain that's not falling but just hanging there.

I give you MUCH credit. I was HAPPY to help hang drywall in the basement to avoid the outside world!

Meg said...

Nice splits! I like that mentality too!