Right on track.

Running has always been my enemy. Even as a kid when we used to have to run as a warm up for swimming I would complain and complain and complain. It just never felt natural - that pounding would always make everything hurt, even on young bones. But since I found this awesome world of Triathlons and have embarked on a new training regime with TopNotch, I seemed to found a love and thirst for wanting to better my running - in every aspect. To conquer all those past demons which held me so firm in their grip. And last night I did it. I think I may have finally found my running alter ego.

Last night's track session was fantastic. It really could not have gone any better and I was super impressed with how I am progressing. It's not by any stretch the accomplishments of an elite athlete but to me they show me that even at the tender age of 36, I still have alot more left in the tank.

This is what we did;

• 800m warm up
• 4 x 200m run throughs

Then onto the main set:

• 2 sets of 8 x 200m on 1 minute with 30 sec recovery. I did them all on about 55 sec

Then this is where I got totally excited and scared. Chris said we now had a 1km timed effort. Effort? What did he mean by effort? His effort or my effort? I soon found out he wanted it at a pace faster than my 200m pace. As I started walking over to the starting line I could feel those usual thought' s start to surface. All the self doubt and panic. But within and instant a very stern voice crept in my head and said "FOR @*#T SAKE, YOU JUST DID A SPRINT TRI, THIS IS A PIECE OF CAKE".

So off I went. I really had no clue about my pace only that the speed I was running at felt good, so I kinda thought I was not going to get a good time. With the last 100m Chris yelled "Barb, go for it, whatever you have left". So I did, I sprinted. My time effort for the 1km was:

4:50

I could not believe it. I have never done that pace and still felt strong afterwards. Now I know I shouldn't get too excited - it's not like I could maintain that pace for too long - JUST YET. But I know it won't be too long before I can maintain this for a 2km stretch, then 3, 4. The skies the limit. This is cool.