Humid 400's

Today, the heat of summer peeked at us, delivering temps around 72 degrees and really high humidity. Better start getting used to it! Anyway, a fairly small group, about 20 folks, left for Austin High School right on time at 6:00. I ran over with Amy, Henry and Joseph today, at a more leisurely pace than on Tuesday (around 9:35 pace). A bunch of people were commenting on how sore they were after the extended circuit fun from Tuesday. I know my hamstrings were a little beaten up today. They loosened up pretty well, though, by the end of the drills. When we got to the track, a bunch of other people were there ready to go, including Richard, among others. Drills were drilled, and we were ready to go.

We were to do between 12 and 20 x 400's, 1:00 active rest between. No bonus walked laps this time. Pace was suggested for my group at 1:45. Poor Joseph was moved up to a faster group, with Alex, because he has been blasting the tempo runs. That's what you get for showing some speed to Gilbert! Anyway, my group was Henry, David, Amy and Richard. It seemed like I did most of the pace work, but that's okay with me. I was really locked in today, and it felt good to run a bunch of 400's under control like we did. Henry is just getting back to speedwork, and did 8 repeats, I think. David ran a 5k race last night, so he stopped after 10. Amy did 12 with us, and really cranked her last one, then she had to get going to work. Richard and I did the 13th repeat, and then I foolishly asked Gilbert how many we should do (thinking, perhaps, that he'd say that we'd done enough). Of course, he said to do 15. So, Richard and I rolled out the last two repeats. I think I put the hammer down a bit on those last two, but Richard hung in there pretty well, finishing only a few seconds behind me on those. For all the others, we were a nice tidy pack. I was very pleased with the numbers, both in their consistency and fine overall average pace. Richard is really fighting the humidity and heat after his 3 weeks in Europe and that nice cool weather over there, but he did well today in spite of all that.

The numbers, you say? 1:43, 1:43, 1:42, 1:43, 1:43, 1:44, 1:42, 1:43, 1:41, 1:41, 1:42, 1:41, 1:41, 1:38, 1:35. Average pace was around 1:41 or 1:42, right in there, 6:48 mile pace. After the first repeat, we just tried to stay at that number for a long time, and then we eased the pace quicker over the last half of the session. It was hard work, but not all out. Still, that pace is way faster than 10k or 5k pace right now for me! That 1:00 rest seemed shorter and shorter as the workout went along...but isn't that the way it always is?

I had not planned on doing quite so many, thinking I'd stop at 12, but it was cool to run so strong today. Gilbert talked to me about some form issues that he had noticed (I'm leaning backwards again...need to focus on that bit of form). After some water on the old noggin and some Powerade for the insides, I ran alone back to RunTex (everyone else either drove or had left earlier), and accidentally ran pretty quick. I thought I was going easier than I was... but it turned out to be 8:50 pace going back. With all the humidity, my shirt was soaked today. Harbinger of things to come...sigh...

For the day, 7.4 miles. 6000 meters of intervals at that 6:48 average pace, and the warmup/cooldown stuff was at 9:18 pace.

I finished it off with some good stretching and one set of the ab stuff that I've been neglecting. I talked with Pete, Gilbert and Paul while I was there, which is always a fun thing. Did 30 x crunches/extensions, 20 x Jan Crunches, 20 x canoe crunches. I can tell I've been away from those exercises.

At any rate, it was a good day at the running office. Tomorrow, I'll hopefully get to the gym, and then it's a moderately long run on Saturday.