Pace Run at Town Lake

This morning was the same weather as the last three weeks, but overcast for a slightly different flavor. 6:00 at RunTex, and there was a pretty large group today for the pace run. The instructions for the day were to go 20 minutes or 2 miles easy, then run the rest of the 6.9 mile loop at a strong but steady pace. Gilbert added the idea that we should try to run faster than last week for the full loop. Those words caused a shift in how the workout was done.

I went out at what I thought was "easy pace," but was soon left behind as Richard jumped up and ran with Patrick and Jan ahead of me. Gilbert's casual mention that we should try to be faster had caused pretty much everyone to go faster even during the warmup. I was at the very back of the pack, running with Mike and Carrie. The alleged "easy pace" start of 20 minutes was clicked off at something like 8:31/mile pace (2.36 miles). That's a lot faster warmup than last week's pace run.

At that point, I started picking up the pace, and Carrie went with me. For a mile or so, we ran together, and then I pulled ahead of her and started chasing the pack ahead of me, which included Jan and Richard. I had a good long mile there while I chased down Jan, and then went by her to catch up with Richard and Shane, who were running together. I caught my breath a little bit, drafting off of them as we crossed the Mopac footbridge (I was planning to continue across the bridge, especially if Richard and Shane took a water stop, but they didn't, so that bit of "race strategy" wasn't used today :) ). Then, in the last two miles, I pushed the pace just a little more, and pulled away from them enough to finish maybe 20-30 seconds ahead of them by the finish line.

It helped me today to not look at my watch as I ran, so that I could just concentrate on how I felt, and I even was able to lie to myself and say how relaxed I was running fast. The final numbers were 6.9 miles in 56:09, or 8:08/mile pace, a big 3 minute improvement over last week's pace run. The actual "pace" portion of the run was 4.54 miles, at an average pace of 7:57/mile. Good one! I was really surprised at the numbers, and happy about it, of course. A quick visit to the outdoor shower to douse my head with cool water, and a couple of cups of water from the RunTex coolers, and I felt pretty refreshed.

After everyone rolled in, we did striders on the grass (Gilbert was standing there, so we felt obliged to do the right thing). I did 5, which felt pretty good, especially on the last 3 of them.

I stretched afterwards with Jan, Patrick, and Frank, and it just was a good day at the running office. The Gazelles are probably my primary social outlet, which says something about me that I can't quite figure out. That being said, it's sure nice to have a group of friends (or at least friendly people) who share my running hobby. My guitar friends understand that I love to run, but they don't know what it's like to train with the Gazelles. Fortunately, the herd takes care of itself, and we at least have some time before and after each workout that we can use to get most of the running talk out of our systems. :) Tomorrow, we have the always entertaining rolling 1000m repeats at Meriden Street. Whew!