No Pommel Horse

This afternoon Jennie and I took a casual stroll through the 6th arrondisment of Paris. It was absolutely gorgeous out so we took the opportunity to pop in and out of every little jardin and park that we saw. To cool off we popped into two separate Chapels - Chapel of St. Vincent de Paul and the Chapel of Notre-Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse. As far as chapels go, I do not recommend either of these 2. The Chapel of St. Vincent de Paul was creepy because the main centerpiece at the head of the Chapel was a statue of St. Vincent de Paul in his casket. He had an ash-grey face which was turned sideways on his pillow so he could watch the church...I had a hard time finding the "beauty" with this chapel.

Here I am navigating our way through a narrow Paris street.


I was quite disapointed when we popped into the Square Recamier because I had the urge to pop out some pommel-horse action on top of one of the fences, but the authorities must have known I was coming...durn!


We ended our walk infront of the Hotel des Invalides (Napolean is buried just under the golded dome in the picture below...we will go inside on another day...too nice today!). Infront of the Hotel des Invalides there is plenty of greenspace that were loaded with people playing football, american football, roller hockey, and picnicing. This reminded me that it was time to go home and do my run.


Today's run was scheduled to be:

2 mile warmup
2x(10 minutes threshold + 2min recovery)
60 minutes easy

Threshold Pace = 6:04/5:59/5:54 min/mile for VDOT's = 58, 59, and 60.

I decided to run to the track to do my threshold there because I "enjoy" counting laps more than I "enjoy" counting time ("enjoy" is used as a relative term). The track is 3 miles away, which increased my warmup...no worries, I was looking for a reason to procrastinate the threshold anyway! The track was quite busy with walkers and recreational runners who all looked at me like I was crazy for actually wanting to use the track to, oh I don't know, actually run on! Overall it was a great workout...I think my super expensive haircut increased my aerodynamics today (hey...I am still grasping at straws to justify the expense!).


The actuals of the run are as follows:
3 mile warmup:
7:08/7:22/7:18 min/mile

Threshold - Instead of doing "10 minutes" I did 7 laps on the track (easier math!)
1. (1:33, 1:30, 1:29, 1:29, 1:28, 1:28, 1:29) = 5:57 min/mile
Recovery: 7:17 min/mile
2. (1:28, 1:28, 1:28, 1:28, 1:29, 1:27, 1:29) = 5:52 min/mile

"60 min"
7:03/7:06/7:11/7:09/7:09/7:02/6:49/7:02 (last .7 miles) min/mile

The hour after threshold was very difficult to slow my legs down because they burned so good (I cannot explain it!). The entire time I was running I could just feel the lactic acid flushing through my system and I loved it! I knew that I would have no problem finishing the workout so I just accepted the leg soreness and ran onwards. It also helps when you know you have an easy week coming up!

Here is my HR (red) and pace (blue) graph. You can see how Garmin is all over the place when you are running amongst Paris buildings, which I was for the first 3 miles. The Threshold should be obvious on the graph!


TOTAL WEEKLY MILEAGE: 57.73 miles (goal: 54 miles - goal achieved!)

All and all, a great day in Paris! I am quite looking forward to this next week because it is only a 42 mile week, which means I will probably be able to take 2 days off! Plus, this is the last week of Phase II, which means I only have 1 more Interval session left at the track...sweet!

Oh yeah - Tuesday is Canada Day...remember to call your favorite Canadians and have them take you out for a Labatt's!

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