W-W-W-W-Wilke!

It was time for Wilke again today. Alex, Frank and I ran the longer warmup and cooldown from RunTex, about 2.7 miles each way, instead of the shorter 1 mile warmup from closer to Wilke. I like the longer warmup and cooldown for this workout, and try to do it most times. At any rate, it was warmer, 75 or so, and humid as usual. We had a nice time chatting as we ran over to the scene of the workout proper. I remember doing this workout for the first time, and the long warmup was hilly enough for me at that time. Having to do the actual hill repeats on top of that was seemingly impossible way back when.

It was a much smaller group than usual, but for Wilke, that's about the normal turnout. It's easy to find a reason to miss this one. It was light enough for the drills that Gilbert could correct form for some folks. He prescribed 3-7 x Wilke, concentrating on high knees and form as usual. Then, we were to do 2 x half of Wilke running backwards uphill. I was feeling pretty good, but my legs were a little heavy still from the race. My mental note was to do 3, see how I felt, and have a top goal of 6 repeats.

I ran the first 2 or 3 with Chelsea, and we got each other up the hill in pretty good fashion. I was quicker up the hill than usual, and I wasn't hating it as much as usual. Still, it's a fearsome workout for me. I took a cup of Powerade after number 3. On number 4, I trailed along behind Gretchen, and by the end of that one, I was feeling the burn. So, on the 5th repeat, I pushed along, trying to stay close to Gretchen, and turned in my fastest repeat yet at Wilke. However, I was well and truly done after that, my fastest average on Wilke ever, with very consistent times for the 5 repeats, and I didn't even hate it!

Having done 5 quality repeats, I went back down, had another Powerade, and then made my way up to the start of the backwards repeats. I've often described those as feeling like you're dragging your car up the hill, and this time was no exception. Still, except for some form weirdness that Gilbert spotted, I was strong on these, and powered through them in good shape. To top off the Wilke experience, Gilbert had us do 3 shorter uphill striders on the steepest bit of the hill, the very top of it, using exaggerated high knee action and quick turnover. Those are actually sort of fun, because right when it starts to get hard, it's over.

As usual, after the repeats were done, everyone was all smiles at the bottom of the hill. We all took on some water and Powerade, and chatted for a bit. Gilbert made special mention of my good trail run finish, which was really nice of him to do.

The run back was really comfortable for a change. Alex had some venting to do about work, which probably made the run back harder for him than it was for Frank and me. We did a bunch of stretching, and then after Alex left for work, I did the core stuff, back up to the usual numbers.

It was a good day at the running office. Yet another in a long string of such days, it seems. When I look back at how I felt before, during, and after Wilke workouts last spring and then compare that to today, I can easily see how far I've come in a relatively short time. All the hard work is paying off, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Total workout day 7.8 miles, including warmup, cooldown, repeats, drills, and such. The rest of the running week is pretty relaxed since I'll be vacationing, unless I decide to do something crazy on Friday like a fartlek simulation of the 3-6 x 800m workout.