Wednesday was a nice day off of running. I got a good sports massage on Tuesday, and that worked out some soreness in the calves, so I figured an off day was a good idea on Wednesday. This morning, Thursday, the Gazelles workout was a tuneup, 10 x 1:00 fartlek accelerations, 1:00 recovery jog, plus warmup and cooldown. My group was Amy and Joseph and myself, and we had a good time. Took turns leading the pace on the accelerations, and that made it more fun. Our total day just over 5 miles. Average pace during the Fartlek portions somewhere around 8:15/mile, so I feel good about going after 8:00/mile pace at IBM on Sunday. The weather was just great this morning, about 65 degrees. So nice to see the end of the muggy hot mornings from summer time!

Friday is an off day, possibly will do an easy cycle 30 minutes. Saturday, I'll meet Frank at 8:00 am (we get to sleep in!! ) for 4 easy miles, and then the long Gazelles stretch-o-rama. Sunday is race day.

Tuesday was another Gazelles group workout. We met at 6:00 am, and headed over to Austin High School for the circuit training workout. Gilbert is taking it easy on us this week, to get us ready for the IBM 10K. The circuit workout, however, is always a challenge. We ran controlled 800m intervals, and in between the intervals, we did a series of 5 exercises: stepups on a bench, pushups, straight leg lifts, back raises, and lunges. I did 3 repetitions of the circuit. The running is the easy part. For me, I still work hard on the pushups, and the lunges sometimes make my legs feel like rubber. All in all, a good workout, and everything feels great. Total day about 5 miles.

This morning was pretty nice. Sunny and about 70 degrees. So, I fought off the demons that said, "You're tired, don't do this workout!" Put on my spiffy black Gazelles shirt and shorts, sort of a Gary Player look, and headed out for the Gilbert fartlek workout. This is the last hard run before the IBM 10K on Sunday. Scheduled workout is to go out at easy long run pace, and accelerate for varying amounts of time to a pace 20-30 seconds faster than that pace, approaching marathon race pace in the pickups. Between pickups, there are varying lengths of recovery jogging. The idea is to build mental and physical abilities to deal with tough spots in your race(s).

I cut the prescribed warmup and cooldown periods a little short, since I'm still not quite at the upper levels of Gazelle-dom. So, I did 10:00 warmup, then 10:00 acceleration, 2:00 recov., 3 x 5:00 acceleration, 1:00 rest each, 5 x 2:00 acceleration, 0:30 seconds rest each, and 6 x 1:00 acceleration, 0:15 seconds rest each, followed by 10:00 cooldown.

I think I got a little aggressive on the accelerations 2:00 and shorter, but anyway, the overall pace for my 7.86 miles was 8:53, which was the pace I used at the last marathon tempo run. I'm pretty sure I went too hard today, but except for some inclines, I felt pretty good.

The rest of the week sets up easier, so I'll have plenty of time to get ready for IBM 10K.

Yet another good day at the running office.

This morning was a true recovery effort with the Finishers group for Galloway, and we knocked off 7 miles at an average of 11:54/mile. Legs felt pretty good, but I'm tired. A good night's rest tonight, and good eating and drinking, and I'll be ready for Monday Fartlek effort.

This was a 35 mile week, so it's starting to add up. Next week starts with a good Monday run, then the regular Gazelles workouts will be relaxed, circuit routine and easy 10 x 1 minute fartlek run. Friday and Saturday off, preparing for the IBM Classic 10K on 10/3/04. I'm really looking forward to the 10K, to check the scorecard and see where I am.

Today was a 10 mile recovery run, or at least that's what was advertised. I found myself running with the faster people this morning, and we knocked off the 10 miles in an average pace of something like 8:53/mile. Way faster than my usual long run pace, of course.

It felt good, though, and I was pretty conversational throughout the run, so it must have been an okay pace. Only two stops for water, about a minute each, and we were steady throughout.

Finished it off with 6x100m strides and the long stretching regimen with Gilbert.

It was a good day at the Running Office. Very good.

I also learned the drill for the Monday Fartlek workout, so I'll be ready for that. Sunday is a 7 miler leading the beginner group for Galloway, which really will be a recovery run effort.

I'm starting to think bigger thoughts regarding my running goals...but there's work to do.

Thursday night, I did the marathon pace run, and it went very well. I started at 8:00 pm, and the 10 minute warmup was fine after the always fun first 5 minutes when it seems you can't breathe at all. By the end of the warmup, I was already more or less at pace, so I picked it up only a little bit. Running all around my neighborhood, I knocked off some 4.6 miles during my 40 minutes at tempo, and although it felt relaxed, I was surprised to find that I had averaged around 8:40/mile during that segment. Except for a few of the steeper hills, I wasn't working excessively hard, and that was very encouraging. Settling down for the cooldown 10 minutes felt like I was crawling along, and that portion was even at 9:15 pace, just over my current marathon race pace idea for Freescale 2005. It was a good workout. Everything feels fine, no aches, no pains. I'm looking forward to a full rest day on Friday, though.

Okay, I'm back on the Blog. I think I'll use this avenue to publicly report on my running and training for the Distance Challenge races here in Austin, as well as the big finale for that series, the Freescale (nee' Motorola) Marathon in February 2005.

I'm doing most of my serious training with Gilbert Tuhabonye and his Gilbert's Gazelles group. It's a group of pretty serious runners who all are looking to improve, and Gilbert is the guy to get us there. Right now, I'm among the slowest Gazelles, but that's not such a big problem. Everyone in the group understands that we are all putting out the same effort at the various workouts, but we all have varying maximum speeds. So, my 1:45 400m intervals feel to me like someone else's 1:15 intervals.

I was hurt for 6 long weeks in the early summer, so I'm only now finding myself back in the shape I was in May. It's pretty exciting to track my progress ( at least it is to me), and to see the improvement just in the last month or so.

I am in charge of the Galloway marathon training program here in Austin, but I am no longer doing my primary training with them. I'm trying the Gazelles way, in hopes of dropping my marathon time to the magic sub 4:00 level. Gilbert believes that I can do it, and who am I to argue with my coach? I am still leading the beginner's group for the Freescale marathon with the Galloway program, which I'm treating as a recovery run on Sundays after my Gazelles long run on Saturdays. The main difference so far for the long runs is that there aren't any programmed walk breaks in Gilbert's long runs (we do take a few stops for water, of course), and the pace is slightly faster, although still conversational. Also, Gilbert wants us to pick up the pace over the last quarter of each long run, to learn how to run hard while you're tired. So far, mission accomplished.

So far this week, I ran the dreaded Wilke hill repeat workout on Monday, 5 x 300m steep hills, followed by 2 x 150m repeats running backwards up the last portion of the hill. It was the toughest workout in the Gazelles arsenal, and one that you are proud to have completed once it's done. Tuesday was a day off (I had run Saturday long, Sunday recovery 6 miler, then Monday hill repeats). Wednesday, we did a 4 mile tempo run, at something like 10K pace. The goal was to go out relaxed, and to try for increasingly faster miles throughout, finishing with your fastest last. I did pretty well, knocking off 4 miles in 31:37, 7:56 pace, and my second half was faster than the first half. Considering just 3 weeks ago, I did only 3 miles at an average of 8:03/mile, I'm pleased with yesterday's effort.

Today, I've scheduled a marathon paced tempo effort, 10 minutes warmup/cooldown, and 40 minutes (or so) of marathon race pace in the middle. I plan on doing that tonight, to give my legs a little more time to recover from yesterday morning's run.