I sort of tried to talk myself into substituting a standard marathon pace run (20 wup/cooldown, 50 minutes marathon pace "run as you feel" in the middle), but in the end, I once again took the first steps out to my car and then down to Town Lake for the 10 mile Progressive run. As Gilbert maps them out for me, it's 45 minutes relaxed, recovery paced running, followed by progressively faster miles all the way from there to the end of the 10 mile Longhorn Dam loop, trying to hit 5k pace towards the end of the run. It's a character builder. The last time I did one of these, I think I was still a little too sore and stiff from the Mount Bonnell - FM 2222 mountain extravaganza, and it set me back for a couple of weeks. This time, I felt way better going into the run, with no real soreness or stiffness left over from Saturday's 21 miler, so I had more confidence today. I also decided to try to hold back a little until the last couple of miles instead of blasting it out too early. "Progressive," not "Stupid." Plus, tomorrow's workout is the Wilke hill repeats, and I need to have something left over for that.
Anyway, weather at noon was gorgeous. Clear, sunny, temps in the high 50's, very windy. One of those Austin "winter" days that reminds you why you love living here so much. The wind was an issue from time to time, but other than having to hold my hat in my hands going over the Mopac bridge and the Longhorn Dam, it didn't cause too much trouble.
I started and finished at the Zero Mile marker at Auditorium Shores. It was shorts and long-sleeve shirt weather, and off I went, packing a little Accelerade and some GU. Definitely a sunglasses kind of day. I set the HR monitor as a governor of sorts for the 45 minute easy period of the run, trying to harness me to a nice easy pace. I ran a little faster than I should, even so, but my legs felt great, and I rolled the warmup period at 9:27/mile pace, covering 4.75 miles. I took a very short stop at about 4.25 miles to get a quick gulp of Accelerade and to finish off my Enervitene left over from Decker a couple of weeks ago. With that quick energy stop, I ran the rest of the run continuously. After the timer told me it was time to pick up the pace 5 minutes later, I eased into gear, and headed on towards Longhorn Dam (I ran the loop clockwise so that I'd get to run the Riverside hills as I will on marathon race day).
In semi-high speed mode, I rolled through the next few miles in 8:00, 8:17, and 8:34, trying to keep my HR at or just over my high tempo run sort of rate. Again, I wanted to try to run faster, but not crazy fast just yet. Feeling good, I hit Riverside, and really pushed the hills there, covering that mile in 7:34 pace, which was very satisfying. I was obviously ignoring the HR monitor at this point.
I certainly had worked hard, but it didn't feel like an all-out sort of day. I gulped down a GU right after finishing, and had a few cups of water and the rest of my Accelerade as I took a 5 minute walk to continue the post-run cooldown.
Everything was just great until I got to my truck, and found that my right front tire had decided to go flat. I drank my post-run Endurox drink as I perused the owner's manual to figure out how to get my spare tire down from its secret hiding place underneath the rear of the car. After toiling away for 20 minutes or so, I had the spare mounted, and found the tack or nail that had caused the flat in the original tire. Not the recommended post-run cross-training, but it wasn't too bad. It was such a pretty day that I didn't get too upset with the whole ordeal.
It was a great run today. 10.1 miles, average pace 8:41/mile. Now, it's time to get ready for Wilke...
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