9:00 Gazelles & Modified Circuit Training

The Day After the 10k, I met the 9:00 M-W Gazelles for their workout. This week, I get to "guest" with them due to time issues. They're a fun bunch, and Greta, Tracy and Patrick are in that group, so it feels normal to run with them. Since so many of us ran hard yesterday, Gilbert adjusted the workout a bit. He sent us out to do a relaxed 4 miles, doing the tempo run course, and then we'd do circuit exercises at Auditorium Shores. So, I took off with the aforementioned folks, including Bridget, and we headed to the turnaround at the Mopac bridge. Patrick, Greta and Bridget ran faster than "relaxed" pace, so I ran with Tracy to start with. We got caught up on what was happening in Real Life, but at the turnaround, she told me to go on ahead. I must have picked it up slightly on the way back, because my last mile was 8:35. Overall, the 4.2 miles were at 8:53 pace. Maybe a bit fast, but it felt fine, and my HR numbers were okay.

After a little water, we did a set of the usual circuit exercises, although I did slightly elevated numbers on a few things. I did 10 stepups (each leg), 15 crunches, 10 Superman jumps, 12 pushups, and 10 lunges (each leg). After that first circuit, Gilbert had us do his "Run While Holding Your Breath" deal. In that, you take a deep breath, and then sprint or stride until you have to breathe. We did 3 repeats of that. I usually got around 70 yards down the grass on those. It's certainly a strange feeling running like that. After the anaerobic strides, we did a second set of circuit stuff, same numbers. And then 2 more anaerobic strides.

A nice stretching session followed, as we worked out remaining kinks from yesterday's race.

It was a fun day, and nice to meet some new Gazelles.

Statistics:
Week 3/28-4/03: 4 runs, 22.4 miles. Solid Meriden 1000 workout, very good 10k race. Two gym workouts, 55 minutes cycling. It was a good week as we did a mini-taper for the 10k. I did miss a scheduled pace run, but the good 10k effort makes me feel okay about that.

March 2005: 135.5 miles. 18 runs. 7 gym workouts. About 70% compliance on doing routine post-run exercises. It was a good month. 50 miles more than March 2004.