Yesterday I went up to Taipei for a meeting.  One of the best developments in Taiwan was the construction of a High Speed Rail line from the north end of the island to the south along the west coast.  Most of the population of Taiwan is along the western coast, the east coast is rural and wild.  It used to be miserable to get from one city to another on the clogged highways, now it is a modern marvel.  We hopped on a train in Hsinchu and we were in Taipei in less than 30 minutes.  Fantastic!

I had a couple of other meetings in the afternoon, and then I begged off of dinner with the local team.  Since I had woken up before 4AM, I was tired, and frankly, I was also weary of being with people.  I needed a little time by myself to think and recharge.

I guess I was pretty tired because I fell asleep before 8 and woke up around 4AM.  I had time for a hella long workout if I wanted, but I decided to stick to my plan for a hard threshold session.

Plan:

• 10′ warmup on the treadmill.  Gradually speeding up.  Last 2 minutes faster than target pace.
• 30′ Threshold run on the treadmill.  2% incline, 10km/h
• Adjust speed as necessary to push HR well into TR through second half of the run.
• cool down

I actually kind of enjoyed that.  I cranked up my sprinting playlist on Spotify, and generally ran to the beat.  I held 10km/hr until I had 5 minutes left.  Then I sped up just a little bit, about 0.2km/h and held that until I had 2 minutes left.  OK, 500m left, time for a last push.  I pushed the speed up another 0.4km/h and finished strong.

Not to make excuses for myself, but just an acknowledgement of reality.  I know that my running speed is slow (damn slow).  I will never win a road race, nor do I aspire to.  I enjoy a run ever now and then, and it is a hell of good way to exercise.

Today, I have a full day of internal and customer meetings, and a big team dinner.  Tomorrow morning, I’m planning another fitness center triathlon.

3×30′ HR cap at 150.