2000m Repeats, Summer Style

I guess those who've whined about the cold snap we had a few weeks ago are loving the new Texas weather the last week. This morning, it was a zillion percent humidity and 71 degrees, overcast skies. Just like it was back in September. Oh, well, time to break out the singlets again!

The first Gazelles workout of the new year started with a quicker than normal warmup run over to Zilker Park for 2000m repeats. Even the drills were slightly longer than usual. Sort of a Supersized deal. None of my regular pacing gang was here this morning, so I'd have to make my own pace. It just makes it more of a mental thing. I decided to tag along behind Frank's group, and to figure out the proper gap between their pace and mine. Gilbert prescribed 4 or 5 repeats for marathoners, and told us to "run how you feel" on the first one, and then he'd tell us pace after that.

I intended to go for 4 x 2000m, at about 9:20 pace (7:31 mile pace) for each of them. That's about where I figured I'd be, based on past workouts at this distance. Cruising along, relatively comfortably, I knocked out the first one in 9:20, perfect. A quick 2 minute recovery, and we were off again. The next two repeats were in 9:09 and 9:06 (about 7:20 mile pace) drifting faster and faster. Another quick recovery, and Frank and I were left from his gang. He took off, and I just tried to hang out about 50 yards behind him as long as I could. He was really moving, and I ignored my watch until I crossed the line at the end, just running to the tape. The last repeat was my first time under 9:00, a smooth 8:42 (7:00 mile pace). Now, I was working on that last one, but I still had a little more in reserve if I had to use it.

We took some time to wait on Alex's group to knock out their 5th repeat, and chatted with Gilbert. After those speedy people finished up, we ran back to RunTex at a snappy 9:00 pace.

It was a nice return to running, and all physical systems seem to be working just fine. It'll be interesting to see where I am with the tempo run on Thursday.

For the day, 8000 meters of repeats at 7:18 average pace, about 13 seconds faster than the average pace of 6000m of repeats at the last time we did this workout, and 8.2 miles total running, at 8:00/mile average pace. My current 5k "Masters PR" is at about the pace of the 4 x 2000m repeats, and the overall mileage and day was at my current Masters PR 10k pace. Good things are happening!