Last Reconnaissance Run Before Freescale

My head cold has returned, but I'm hopeful that it'll go away by next weekend. That caused my HR to be slightly elevated today, but that's okay. Today, on a gorgeous morning in the mid-40's, clear and crisp, we were sent out on a 7 miler incorporating the last 10k of the Freescale course. I ran with a big pack of Henry, Laurie, Volel, Jan, Patrick, and myself. We caught Margaret and Liliana towards the end of the run. Gilbert told us to just go out and run easy, and we did. After the water stop at about 4.3 miles, I stayed to talk with Gilbert for a bit, and then had to bust a quick mile to catch the guys again, so my pacing wasn't exactly even. We ended up doing a little over 7.6 miles at 9:48/mile pace, and then did 7x100m strides on the grass at Auditorium Shores. We jokingly practiced crossing the finish line and holding our arms high for the finishing photos, waiting to click our watches until after the photo area was passed.

I wore what will probably be my raceday clothing, shorts, cap, gloves, and two shirts. I felt just fine until we stopped. When we got back to RunTex, I enjoyed the ritual of putting on dry warm clothes, as usual.

Afterwards, the stretching session was fun, and the Governor even joined us for a while after he finished his morning run. Once we finished with that, Gilbert called us over to check out his Freescale race goals for all of us. He selected 3:55:00 for me, which is within the realm of possibility, if I have a good day. After a little more conversation about GU strategy for the big race, we scattered to the four winds. Just 8 more days to Freescale!