400's Again?

This morning, the Gazelles herded themselves over to Austin High School for 400m repeats. It was sunny and clear, but a little cooler (high 60's to 70 degrees), so weather was nice. I chatted with Amy on the way over, catching up on her fine triathlon performance on Monday, and that's always a good way to start your running day. I felt a little stiff during the drills, but loosened up sufficiently that I felt good about the start of the intervals. Oh, yeah, we did the lap around the track for striders, easy 50m, fast 50, etc., instead of two straight 100m strides at the end of drills.

Anyway, today's workout was all about specific and consistent pacing. Gilbert gave each group a very specific number to run, and expected them all to come out like that. My group got 1:45, which was a little slower than the last time we did these, but it made for a good workout all the same. My gang was Amy, Shannon, Richard and one guy whose name I always forget...plus me, of course. They mostly locked in behind me or beside me, leaving the pacing to me. Fortunately, I did a good job of pacemaker again. Our times were mostly within a few tenths of a second of each other. I rounded up when reporting them here, but they were mostly 1:45.x, where "x" was .6 usually. Richard and Amy had to leave after 12, and Shannon and I were the Lone Rangers on the track for the last 3, most of the groups having finished by then. We were really locked in, and then threw down on the last lap, which I ran without looking at my watch. It was cool to run so fast after being so controlled for the first 14.

The times: 1:46, 1:46, 1:46, 1:46, 1:43 (oops), 1:46, 1:45, 1:45, 1:45, 1:46, 1:45, 1:46, 1:44, 1:45, 1:34. Nice.

Except for some minor form tips from Gilbert to keep my abs engaged to keep my form from leaning back, he was pleased with our performance. I ran back with Shannon, and unwittingly, we ran pretty quickly.

Alex, Frank and I did moderate stretching while we chugged down our Endurox, and I chatted briefly with Coach about what my approach should be to this summer's training, since I'm not racing much and I'm not doing a fall marathon. His advice was to concentrate on building strength (keep up the gym work), to do long runs in the 10-12 mile range, and to do medium numbers of most of the speedwork sessions, running quickly but not to worry about really blasting out PR numbers every time out. I can do that.

For the day, 7.5 total miles. Average pace for 15x400m was almost exactly 1:45, or 7:00/mile pace. Good day at the running office.