Circuit Training and some New Stuff

This morning was very humid, but a little cooler, I think. Anyway, it was a day for circuit training, which isn't too tough running, but it's a tough little workout all the same, due to the exercise sets in between the running that don't allow full recovery. I was a little sleepy this morning, but that passed soon enough. My legs felt fine after yesterday's pace run, and I ran over to Austin High School at the back of the herd, running with Richard. Warmup was sensibly paced, drills were drilled, and it was time to do our thang.

Today, Gilbert substituted the wall squats (against the chain link fence) for the "Superman" jumps. We were to do as many circuits as we could until Coach said it was time for the "new stuff." I ended up running most of the 400's with David, as I was determined to run the 400's easy between each circuit. The 400m times were very consistent, 2:12, 2:11, 2:10, 2:11, and I did 4 complete exercise circuits. Gilbert was seemingly everywhere, making adjustments to folks on various exercises, and it was fun to see him stalk someone and jump in with some sort of correction.

After the fourth circuit, Gilbert called us over to do a series of two-footed hops over a string of low hurdles, and I think there were 5 hurdles, maybe 6. Anyway, except for the fact that they got a little pushed around, resulting in some short gaps and longer gaps in the row, that was a fun exercise to add to the end. More plyometrics for our amusement! Maybe my vertical leap will improve from its current pitiful level?

We were done after that, and Frank talked me into running back to RunTex the "long way," which is about a mile longer than usual, going counterclockwise on the trail, over the Mopac bridge and back that way. We ran easily for him, and somewhat quick for me, for a cooldown run. I clicked off two miles at 8:47 and 8:44 at the end. It felt fine, but it was just a little quicker than normal.

I was totally drenched afterwards, but it was a good kind of tired. There was lots of joking around after that at RunTex, and we tried to push Alex a little to relax about his running and to enjoy it. I hope we didn't make him mad at us. When you're coming off an injury, sometimes you just want to be left alone. I know that for a fact from last summer!

No stretching today. It'll be 3 weeks or so until I see some of the gang, like Frank and Jan, so it was sort of strange as we all left the parking lot. I'll be there for the Tuesday and Thursday workouts next week, I think, but then it'll be August before I fully rejoin the Herd. I'm looking forward to some nice trail running in Asheville in a couple of weeks, a 5k race in Carolina that should be fun, and some running in Mississippi later this week.

Tour de Lance: It was awesome watching the last mountain climb in the Tour de France this morning, by the way! Lance and his team just destroyed the field with a torrid pace up the very long final mountain, and once the debris settled, it was just Lance and three other guys to the top. A final push separated the four down to two, and although Lance was outsprinted at the top of the brutal uphill finish, he put a lot of time into everyone else in the field. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to comprehend what sort of lung-bursting effort that takes, but I know enough that I look at Lance with awe in times like these. Now, of course, he just has to handle the remaining 11 stages in the same way, and he might win number 7! I'll be watching...