Fartlek Run

After a couple of days that worried me, it was great to get out there this morning, and join my friends in the Gazelles for the usual fartlek tuneup run before a race. We had a subgroup of 5 people, Frank, Margaret, Joseph, Amy, and myself. We had a nice warmup of 17 minutes or so, doing the I-35 loop "backwards." Then, we took turns leading the fartlek accelerations, 10 x 1:00, with 1:00 easy running between. The trail was wet and muddy, but that was actually pretty fun. We crossed Town Lake on the Pfluger foot bridge, and finished our last acceleration right before the zero mile marker. We finished off the run with a cooldown jog around Auditorium Shores. Total day, 5.3 miles, 8:43 overall pace including warmup and cooldown. Fartlek sections, including recovery running between accelerations, were at about 7:45-7:50 pace, which was moving along.

Town Lake was a noisy rushing stream of water this morning, as the flood waters above Austin are flowing through. The trail was covered in water in a couple of spots, all west of where we crossed the river. It was impressive to hear the water rushing by as we ran along the banks of it.

Afterwards, we did 4 strides at Gilbert's suggestion, and it was a good day. My legs felt much revived after the couple of days' recovery I've taken. The right calf is still a little tight, but I'll work that out soon.