Mile Repeats

This morning, I joined the later morning Gazelles group for what I thought would be circuit training. My schedule doesn't allow me to join my regular group tomorrow at 6:00am. Anyway, Gilbert called an audible on us this morning, and we set out to Zilker park for mile repeats. Tracy and Patrick were there from my long run group, along with some other folks I've met along the way.

We saw this group of about 7 really fit looking guys limbering up at RunTex while we waited to leave, and noticed a big black Secret Service Suburban parked in the lot. There was also a bicycle cop rolling around. It was all clear to us when Governor Perry showed up, and joined his running group for a morning run. I never thought that a governor needed that level of protection, but sadly, I guess it's come to that. The guys ran off, trailed by the Suburban and the bicycle cop. I must surmise that some of the runners were security guys. Paul Carroza joined Gov. Perry for the run.

After drills, we got our marching orders. Those of us doing Freescale marathon were to do 4 x 1 mile repeats on the hilly repeat course, alternating directions on the loop with each repeat. He wanted 80% effort, not all out, but working diligently. Consistency was the watchword. Our first repeat was 7:20, faster than I had expected, and the second was 7:17, so that was surprising. Jessica was a new person with the group, coming off of a 19:00 5K on Sunday, and she drug Patrick along on the second interval to a 7:07 clocking. We all backed off just a tad on the third interval, at 7:26. Gilbert told us before the last one that he wanted us to push on this one, so off we went. I felt sluggish at first, but settled down. Patrick told me to go on, that his pacing had left him flat for the fourth repeat. I set my sights on Greta and Jessica ahead of me. As we went up the long quarter mile hill leading to the halfway point, I passed Greta, but I was way behind Jessica. Either I was going really slow, or she was stomping ahead of me. Regardless, I gathered myself at the top of the loop, and tried to recover a bit on the slight downhill there. Turning for home with less than a half mile to go, I tried to stay calm and focused on the task at hand. I thought I was tooling along at about 7:20-7:30 pace, assuming I was fading at the end. I tried to keep Jessica in sight, but she reached the finish way before I got there. She was heading back on the course for a cooldown jog, and told me to push for the finish, so I shifted into Butt Kick mode, and tried to relax into proper form for the finish. I was stunned to see a 7:07 time for that last interval, but very very pleased.

Average pace for 4 mile repeats 7:18, about 12 seconds / mile faster than my average for 3 repeats about 6 weeks ago. Another very encouraging sign. Gilbert was happy with my running, too, and that made me feel great.

After returning to RunTex, Tracy, Camille and I stretched and enjoyed the sunny morning. It was another good day at the running office. Total day, 7.6 miles, 8:48 average pace.