Back in the Herd...

After taking yesterday off, for precautionary reasons, the left hamstring felt much better. I stretched gently and did some ice and heat treatments here at home, and I think that was what I needed to do.

So, this morning, I rolled out and met the Gazelles at 6:00 am on a gloriously cool and crisp morning in the mid to high 40's for mile repeats. Our 1.5 mile warmup was about 10:00 pace, nice and comfortable, and the drills were as usual. After that, we grouped up for mile repeats on a road course. Amy was ready to run, so she ended up being a group of one. Joseph, Jan and I were a group behind her. Gilbert told me to do 4 repeats. I had planned on only doing 2, so I asked him if he was sure, and he said yes. Oh, well. I intended to run the repeats fairly relaxed, not trying to blast each one. Now, setting out to do 4 of them, I tried to go out easy.

The first repeat was 7:41, and it felt pretty easy. I huffed and puffed on the last incline, but other than that, I was controlled. We went the other way on the course for repeat #2, after 2 minutes jog/walk rest. That way has us running up the steepest hill on the course, but I think overall it's easier that direction. That one was 7:32. The third one was in 7:33, and for the fourth repeat, it was just Joseph and me. We knocked that one out in a surprising 7:24. I thought we were slowing down on that one! At any rate, it was a really good set of mile repeats, and my legs felt just fine. Last time I did this workout, I did 4 repeats averaging 7:18, and today was 4 at an average of 7:32. Not bad, considering I'm only a couple of weeks post-Freescale.

The jog back to RunTex was a little quicker, 9:30 pace, with Frank, Joseph, Jan and me. Once we got there, Frank and Jan and I did stretching and 100 crunches (various sets of two different crunches), along with 20 back raises. It was a good day at the running office.

Once I got home, I iced down the hamstring, just in case. Wednesday is a gym day, cycle and weights. Thursday is a tempo run of 4 miles, and again, I intend to run that a little easier than normal, but that may change.