So Friday came, and went, and no workout… boo. Maybe it’s for the best, though, because I had the great fortune of training with Cambridge MultiSport (CMS) in an indoor triathlon on Saturday morning at the Dorchester County YMCA. What an awesome group to train with. If you are even CONSIDERING training for a triathlon, be it sprint distance or full Ironman, you need to find a local club/team to train with. For a minimal fee ($35!!!) you get coached workouts in the pool and on a track. There are always group rides and runs and the camaraderie can’t be beat. Enough said!

    So what is an indoor triathlon? Typically they are time based and not focused on distance as your stop point. For this tri, we swam in a pool and recorded the distance that you traveled in a set time (I think we swam 20 minutes). And just FYI, if you give your 100 splits based on your last race (3 months ago), expect to be put in the fast lane. 🙂 Thanks to Rebecca and Dave for not killing me when they lapped me 7 times in those 20 minutes!!! 1100 yards down with, unfortunately, no measure of my heart rate. There are devices out there that measure heart rate from your ear lobe (!!!) but let’s face it, I already look like Robocop in my training so I’ll pass (for now).

     A quick (ahem) transition and it’s on to the spin bikes. Unfortunately there is no distance measurement on these bikes so we ride for 45 minutes and I was just able to focus on heart rate. I was able to keep my HR in my MAF level and maybe slipped above 143 every once in a while. I believe I averaged 141, which is exactly what I wanted to do.

     Finally we went outside for a 25 minute run. This was going to be my focus because, until now, I’ve only done the MAF training on a treadmill. It was very difficult to maintain the 143 HR and I think I finished with a 144 average with an average pace of 13:01 min/mile (1.75 miles). OUCH. I know I’m faster, but I want to do this right. It was interesting to find that, right of the bike, my HR spiked up to the 150s and, no matter how slowly I jogged, I could only “reset” it by walking for 30 seconds. Once it dropped and stabilized, it was a slow climb back up.

      SUNDAY morning I decided to do a light run, outside, and was joined by a friend, Donnie, from Tilghman. I warned him that, based on the run from the day before, that the run may be SLOW. Surprising, we ran 5.32 miles, with an average pace of 9:35 and an average HR of 141! I have no idea how that came about, and if it is just a fluke, but I’m hoping to be able to maintain that pace on outdoor runs for a while!! If it happens, it happens. If not, then I will get back to the lower pace for now. If it stays like that, though, there is a lot of promise for this MAF training program. WE SHALL SEE!!