Easy Run & Stretching

Today was a casual 30 minute run followed by the standard Saturday stretching session. It was clear and cool (temps around 45 at the start). Gilbert was a little late arriving, so we were told to run 30 minutes instead of 4 miles. I ended up cruising along with Richard and Alex, and we chatted away as we did our little run. Turns out to be 3.2 miles or thereabouts. Average pace around 9:30-9:40. After that, we did 5 striders on the grass and watched the kids finish up the Dillo Dash mile or whatever it was called. The best part of that was seeing a girl in a walker finish the race, with the crowd roaring for her as she pushed across the line. That put any injury whining by any of us to rest, I'd say.

A giant circle of Gazelles gathered on the grass afterwards for the stretching, and that was fun as usual. It was a glorious morning, and it felt good to be outdoors during the stretching session. We then gathered for a group photo. It was a fun morning.

Capitol 10,000 Goals:
Comfortable goal: Break 50:00 (8:03 pace)
Reasonable goal: Masters PR 49:39 (8:00 pace)
Stretch goal: 49:00 (7:53 pace) - the next round number barrier

When I told Patrick that I had set some modest goals for the Cap 10k, he challenged me to run all out and to "go for it." We'll see how it feels tomorrow morning. Weather promises to be nice and cool, so it'll be a good day to try to run fast. Strategy is to get through the hilly first 3 miles without blowing the whole race, and then to dial it up each mile after that. Peter pointed out to me this morning that the finish line is much further down Riverside than the other races that finish at Auditorium Shores. The mile 6 marker is far after the last corner, coming off the bridge, and the finishing straight is deceptively long. That was good information to put away before tomorrow's efforts. It should be interesting to see how it goes. It's been six months or so since my last 10k, after all.