Half-Fast Tuesday

In my quest to De-Data December (see two posts ago), I got talked into doing Fast Tuesday tonight.  Usually Tuesdays are endurance days for me, and what better time to record every lap time--to the tenth--than when you're doing 50 or so of them?  Endurance just isn't endurance if I'm not not clicking the stopwatch every lap.  So when Sprinter Boy mentioned Fast Tuesday, then, (at first I thought he said "Fat Tuesday" and I figured, hey, finally something I'll excel at), I figured it would be better to ease into my stopwatchless December by doing 200's tonight instead of an endurance workout; I never time my 200's anyway, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to leave the watch in the skate bag for this workout.

So this was the plan:  four 200's, then some easy laps, then a warm-the-toes break inside and then four more 200's.  I can't keep up with Sprinter Boy and Mel and Hawkeye Boy on anything remotely high-effort and these 200's were supposed to be close to 100% so I knew I'd be skating "behind" rather than "with" anybody.  And I hadn't felt the greatest today, so I wasn't expecting great things on the ice.  Still, I wasn't prepared for just how bad tonight's workout would be.

The wamup laps started out well, because they started out slow.  As the pace picked up and the laps ticked by, though, my back got more and more sore and I finally had to quit while the others went on to do two more laps.  Then we started the fast stuff, and the nagging headache that had begun as soon as I started skating got worse with every 200.  Just as bad as the headache was the fact that I just could not produce anything resembling a hard effort.  Just like my races last weekend, the fast 200's were flat, sluggish, slow.  I really need to get my thyroid re-checked...

After the 200's--it took me half of the 600 meters of rest to catch the others after every one, that's how far behind I was--we did 6 slow laps.  I did manage to stick with the others for the whole 6 laps; it was fun trying to match everyone else's strokes and I do think it's good for me to skate behind and try to mimic these very good skaters, and to forget about lap times for a bit  (although my right forefinger did twitch a little every time we completed a lap).

Then we went inside for our warmup break, and I gave in to the headache and the sluggishness and the general fatigue and decided to go home instead of going back out to complete the workout.

And that's how Fast Tuesday became Half-Fast Tuesday.