Running With A Different Herd...

This morning, I got to run with the 9:00 M/W group of Gazelles. The morning was glorious, once again, nice temps around mid-60's, sunny and clear. There were only 6 of us, and we headed over to Zilker Park for our 1000m repeats. I ran over with Greta, and we had a nice chat as we cruised over to the soccer fields. After some stalling around, we did the drills, and then gathered with Coach up at the top of the 1000m course. This is the easiest of the "road" courses for intervals that we do with the Gazelles, with a gentle downhill start and then flat from about a tenth of a mile onward. Gilbert assigned between 3 and 5 repeats for everyone at 10k sort of pace, but only 3 for me, at something like half marathon race pace. I figured 5:00 per repeat would be about right, 8:00 mile pace. The trick would be to find that pace.

Without other familiar peeps to help pace, I took off for my first repeat. I think I got caught up in watching the group ahead of me, and crossed the finish line in 4:27 (7:10 mile pace). I was a little miffed about that, but Gilbert told me that I looked smooth running, and not to worry about it. I jogged across the grass, and then knocked out the second and third intervals. Times on those were 4:39 and 4:34, better pacing, but still quick at 7:30 and 7:21 mile pace. I felt fine on these, but I was still a little put out with my internal pacing clock for not getting me to a nice even 8:00 pace.

After a few minutes of chatting with Gilbert, I headed back to RunTex by myself, since I had to get to McCallum High School to teach my guitar class. I ran too fast going back, doing 1.7 miles at about 9:00 pace. Oh, well. I felt fine, it was just a little fast for a true cooldown effort.

I had just enough time at RunTex to do a quick stretching session and then the full post-run exercise regimen. 4x30 crunches/leg extensions, 2x20 "Jan" crunches, 2x20 "Canoe" crunches, 2x25 back raises, and 2x15 pushups. I was breathing pretty hard doing all those crunches, but it felt good to get them done.

It was a good day at the running office. I only have a couple of runs left before Indy, including a fartlek tuneup run on Wednesday and a true easy 3-4 miler on Friday before the race. I'll be ready for action on Saturday, that's for sure! The rest of the week is all about rest and recovery. Totals for today were 5.8 miles, with the 3000m of intervals at an average pace of 7:20/mile.