I ran with the evening (5:30 pm) Gazelles group tonight, because of household duties in the morning. Fortunately, the weather turned last night, and it was only 73 or so at the start of the run tonight. I couldn't get to RunTex in time to leave with the group, so I went directly to the Austin High School track instead, intending to do a warmup run towards the oncoming Gazelles, and turning around with them back to the track. I called Gilbert on the way, letting him know I was still coming, but would meet them at the track. He asked me to check the track, and sure enough, Austin High had a JV football game there, so the track was out. Instead, he asked me to meet them over at Zilker Park.

I took an easy run over to the park, and met up with the afternoon gang. Diana, one of my long run crew, was there, and some other familiar faces besides. I fell in with them, and we did the drills and strides, and then gathered to hear what Coach had to say. He put us into groups (Diana and I were a pod), and told us to run around the Zilker park road, and he would be at the 1000m mark. He wanted the first interval to be the slowest, and then by number 3 and 4, to have a steady pace, and possibly on number 5 to push it a bit. We were to jog across the grass fields between intervals, not too slowly. That was about 300 yards.

I had previously rolled that street for use as a mile repeat course, and had painted marks on the curbs for quarter mile intervals, so I could track pace pretty accurately. Diana and I set off, and we got to Gilbert in a very fast (for 1000m) 4:15. I had done 5 x 1000m some 7 weeks ago, in an average of about 4:40 / 1000m, after all. I felt really good and in control, so I suspected that the distance was a little short. On lap 2, I took a split at 880 yards, and then calculated the distance of the full loop using that 880 pace. The first two intervals were 940 meters. We knocked off the second interval in 4:19, pretty consistent (and 7:23 pace). On lap 3, Gilbert had moved down a bit, and that one calculated pretty much exactly 1000m. We clipped that one and the next at a precise 4:25 (7:06 pace), which still felt pretty comfortable. We were working over the last half of the interval to bring it home at that pace, but it wasn't a death sprint, either. On the last interval, we intentionally pushed it, and brought it in in 4:20, 6:58 mile pace. We were pretty excited about our workout, which, for once, ended up stronger than we started.

It was getting much cooler by the end of the workout, and I was pretty chilled running back to the truck afterwards.

For the day, a total of just under 7 miles, with the 3 miles of fast bits (the 1000m intervals) at an average pace of 7:10, and the rest of the miles (about 4) at 9:30 pace, so this was a quality workout. It was fun meeting a new group of Gazelles, and I'll keep this option in hand now that the weather is cooler.

Friday is going to be a super easy 30 minute run, and Saturday is a 10 mile "recovery" run with the Gazelles. Sunday, I'll be leading a hill repeat workout with the GalloWayers, so that won't be too bad. I can always stop after 3 or 4 repeats, and I can certainly moderate the pace of the repeats for my own workout.