800m Repeats

Another bleary, stuffy morning, as the Texas weather keeps changing on us. This morning, it was another humid and overcast day with temps a little cooler in the mid to high 60's. Not bad, really, but my problem is that the weather won't just stay cold for 3 weeks at a time...we get to watch it bounce around instead. Oh, well.

We had a pretty big crowd today, with a lot of new people, it seems. Once we finished the warmup to Austin High and did the drills, Gilbert had a plan for us all. Those of us doing the 30k this weekend were to do 5 or 6 x 800m, at a somewhat relaxed pace, with 2:00 rest between. New people and those not racing this weekend were to do circuit training.

Another training group was at the track doing a 2-3 mile workout with alternating 200m at marathon goal pace and 200m at 10k race pace, so it would be crowded for the first part of our workout, and a little odd pacing due to the other folks speeding up and slowing down.

I was a group of one, since my usual gang was either absent or was not racing Buda this weekend. I decided to tag along behind Frank and Sean's group, letting a gap build between us. They were supposed to be doing 3:25-3:30, and I was supposed to do 3:35-3:40. Gilbert said the first repeat could be a little easier as we got into the workout. The idea for this one was to get a little speedwork in without wiping out ourselves for the 30k, so Gilbert gave us times that were intentionally slower than usual.

The repeats were pretty comfortable, in 3:42, 3:42, 3:34, 3:36, 3:33, 3:28. After that, we knocked out 3 x200m striders for form, and called it a day. I ran back with Alex and Frank, and we were all excited about the prospects for Sunday's race.

For the day, just over 7 miles at an average of 8:25/mile.

After talking with Gilbert, I may alter the progressive run just a little tomorrow, and maybe do a 7 mile progressive instead of 10, going 30 minutes easy and finishing with 30-35 minutes faster running at the end. We'll see.