Some Pool PRs! (And a Cycling PR too.)

My sore sacrum has me a little worried for my running, but my swimming and cycling have been going well this spring / summer. Here are some PR workouts over the last few weeks:

• June 24: fastest 4x400s ever: 5:52.9 average. (I mentioned this once before in this post.) Lately, they've been around 6:00, so this was a BIG drop.

• June 26: fastest 20x100 ever: 1:22.7 average. This workout was just after we found out that the "By George" Tri that weekend was going to be canceled, so I did a hard swim. Then, a few hours after that hard workout, we decided to sign up for the Lake Waconia Triathlon that was less than 48 hours away. Luckily, the hard swim didn't seem to affect my race. These 100s were my fastest 20x100 OR 15x100 ever! I think I maybe averaged better in a 10x100 workout once, but that was well before kids (so probably 5 years ago).

• July 3: fastest 4x500 ever: 7:26.55 average. This was a nice descend, and it was faster than any 3x500 or 4x500 workout I've ever done! My times were 7:34, 7:24, 7:22, 7:20. The best part of my 7:26 average is that I swam a 500 at my last swim meet 18 months ago, and guess what my time was? Yep, 7:26. And now I just did FOUR with that as my average. Sweet.

• July 5: fastest 9x200 ever: 2:54.75 average. These have been around 3:00 lately, and I mentioned in this post 3 weeks ago that I had just done my fastest ever 200s at 2:57.7. Well, I took 3 full seconds off a few weeks later. Killin' it!

That final swim was just 6 days before doing the Sprint relay at Life Time Fitness MPLS, so I was TOTALLY PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME. I had a few easier swims in the final days before the race, and then did all I could for my team at Lake Nokomis. Having this relay swim on my calendar really helped to push my workouts in the pool. It's really no big surprise to me that I had so many "PR workouts" in the 2-3 weeks before the race. It was a great goal to work towards.

Speaking of "right before the Life Time Fitness Tri," on Wednesday, July 8th (3 days before the Life Time Tri), I did a "time trial" ride on my "go to" loop: it's basically "U-shaped" with a flat top. The "flat top" is Summit Ave, and then I head south along River Road until it turns back to the north as Shepard Road. I climb back up from downtown to Summit Ave, and I head home. With an out-and-back to get home, the loop is about 15.5 miles:

Riding it counter-clockwise from the upper left.

Because it's an urban ride with lots of areas you have to slow up or stop (at least 9 stop signs and 17 stop lights), AND because you have to climb Ramsey Hill, it's not a speedy ride.

In this post last September, I noted breaking 20 mph for the first time with my 20.2 mph average.

When I did this 2 weeks ago, I did it with a 20.5 mph average! I took 31 seconds off my time from last Sept, and 23 seconds off my previous best this past April. So I was only my 3rd time averaging more than 20 mph. Nice.

If you missed them, here's my Sprint relay race report, and here's my SUPER Sprint race report.