Today was my first true double-grind of the season. Up until now I've quite often done two in one day but one has been before work and the second has been after work. Today I did two back to back.
In order to save my legs for the second grind I really wanted to concentrate on doing the first grind nice and easy but with some purpose. So I decided to try to limit my max heart rate to under 150, and try and focus on deep diaphragm breathing, inhaling through my nose and out through my mouth. This actually worked surprisingly well!
I kept feeling like I wanted to go faster... my legs were really urging me on! But I focused on breathing and keeping my pace. My breathing felt great and I hardly felt out of breath at all. I didn't even break much of a sweat until the 1/4 mark - which is very unusual for me on the grind! I purposely put on slow music and entered an almost trance like state... it's a little weird but doing the grind became like a moving meditation that run!
By keeping this even pace, one that I felt I could easily carry on a conversation with, I finished the grind in about one hour. About 13 minutes off my Personal Best. Had a quick snack, changed into dry clothes and went back down to do it over again.
I think I started the second grind too fast, as by the half way point I was really feeling it in my legs. I was on pace by the 1/2 mark but it fell off from there and I ended up about four minutes off my best time. Definitely challenging to do two in a row and keep up good paces! I was amazed by Jason Chong's grind times today that started at one hour and progressively got faster until his eighth time was 36 minutes! An amazing performance.
Tomorrow I have a media interview early, around 7am, and will try and fit a grind in after that.
Here is my heart rate from the garmin for the slow, meditative, grind!
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