1000m Repeats

Gilbert cut us some slack this morning, since we're going 22-23 miles tomorrow morning. If we were running long on Friday, we "only" needed to do 5x1000m this morning (200m easy jog between each interval), instead of 8. That gave me a big sense of relief. I was a bit worried about doing the 1000m workout to the max and then going for the longest long run we'll do the day after that.

The weather was overcast, humid, and about 60 degrees. Okay, but tomorrow it may not be all that much fun to knock out the looooonnnnggg run if it's that type weather. Oh, well. Easy run to Austin High School, drills, and a variation at the end. Instead of doing 2 x 100m strides at the end of the drills, we did a 400m lap, alternating 50m jogs with 50m strides for the full lap. Same amount of stride distance, but just a different way of approaching it.

I was a 'tweener today, not quite as fast as Frank's group, but faster than Henry, Pat, and a woman I don't know yet. The other guys hung near me on the first couple of repeats, which I did in 4:42 and 4:38, both way faster than last time I did this workout. After that, I left them, and became a group of one for the last 3. Those were in 4:31, 4:32, and 4:22 for the last one. Average pace for the 5x1000m intervals was 4:33 (7:19 mile pace), which was about 10 seconds per 1000m faster than the last such workout. I was surprised and pleased that they felt as comfortable as they did. I did my 3 x 200m strides with Margaret, Frank and Sean, and then we cruised back to RunTex. I ran back with Margaret, and I guess she was in a hurry to get to work, because our pace coming back was about 9:12/mile, faster than I usually do a cooldown.

I stuck around afterwards and chatted with Lucy and Frank while I did most of the full stretching regimen.

For the day, total mileage of about 8 miles, 8:22/mile average pace for everything. Now, it's time to simulate my pre-marathon hydration and nutrition ritual for the long run tomorrow.