Mt. Bonnell Run

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder! Frank and I met at 6:00 am for a return visit to Mt. Bonnell. It's a hilly track even before we get to the main event, and then it's a serious vertical climb over a half mile to the top of Bonnell. We had a great time running together, even though Frank right now is a little quicker than me. We took only two quick water/Accelerade/GU stops, one at the boat docks at mile 4, and one at the top of Bonnell, where I had stashed a cooler with Accelerade in it. That's where we did the GU, too. It was a nice cool sunny day, temperatures around 50 by the time we finished. Since we don't normally do our long runs together, this was a chance to chat about any number of things, and it was a fun time. We huffed and puffed up Bonnell, and after that, the hills of the rest of the Scenic loop weren't nearly as bad. Finished it off with quicker miles starting 5 miles from the finish, and my last mile was 8:17. We were clicking off the early miles in 9:15 range, and finished with 13.63 miles at 8:58 pace.

After we finished, we did 4 striders, and then joined the rest of the Gazelles for Gilbert's balance drills (the Tsch Tsch drills I've mentioned previously). Then, we gathered for the long stretching routine and had fun there, too, listening to everyone groan, especially on the hamstring stretches. I stopped into RunTex after that to pick up my newest pair of Mizuno Creations, in the new spring color featuring orange as the accent, as well as some more Wright Sox Cool Mesh. Can't ever have enough socks, can you? As I came out of RunTex, I saw Jan and Patrick working on their crunches, so I went over and did my 4x25 crunches, 2x10 pushups, and 2x20 back raises. It was a good day at the running office.

I'll have to do the next 4 or 5 workouts on my own, since I'll be unable to attend the regular group gatherings. That won't be as fun, but I hope to be a good runner and get them all in.