Let's Go Up Mt. Bonnell!

This morning, it was time to do a "recovery run" which included the hilly Scenic course and a journey up and down Mt. Bonnell. Amy and Alex joined me at the Rock at Mopac and Veterans Blvd., and we took off at 6:00 for our adventure. It was still dark then, which was nice to keep us as cool as possible. It felt a tiny bit cooler this morning, but by the end of the run, we were all drenched, so the humidity was certainly out in force.

At any rate, our first couple of miles were nice and relaxed down Lake Austin Blvd. and into the start of the Scenic loop. We skipped the water stop that Gilbert had set up on Lake Austin Blvd because we had just started our run. I was a little worried that I was not quite up to speed during the first couple of Scenic hills, but I settled down soon enough. We had guessed among ourselves when the fastest Gazelles would catch us, even with our 2 mile headstart, and were surprised when we didn't get passed by the time we had headed down Pecos on the way home.

Coming out of the Scenic loop, we headed over to Mt. Bonnell Road, and made that steep journey up the mountain. I guess I've grown accustomed to it a little bit, but except for some deep breathing, it didn't seem so bad today. This was only Amy's second trip up Bonnell on foot, and she had a good climb today as well. Alex loves Bonnell, so he for sure had fun. We stopped at the foot of the steps going up to the overlook and had a couple of cups of Gatorade, and we all had a GU, I think. Amy walked up the steps and Alex jogged up them, and I jogged over to the exit of that upper trail and went backwards up that trail until I met up with them on their way down. That may have added a tiny bit of distance, but it was mainly for entertainment purposes.

Splits up to the Bonnell Gatorade stop: 10:02, 9:25, 9:13, 9:14, and .89 miles including the Bonnell ascent at 9:24 mile pace. Average pace halfway through the journey was 9:28/mile for 4.86 miles.

We rolled down Balcones Woods, enjoying the morning, chatting away as the day woke up around us. We decided to head back via Pecos instead of Exposition, just because we could, and actually picked up the pace through that hilly stretch. When we got to Enfield, we took a right and added some distance by going the long way home and going back by Hula Hut and all those places. There was some sort of very large training group coming towards us on Lake Austin Blvd, but I don't know which it was. Gilbert had already picked up that first water jug, so we just kept running, and kept picking up the pace to the finish. Having Alex along with us is good, because he is going to pick it up more than we might otherwise.

We finished very strong, and the gaps between Alex, then me, then Amy weren't very much at all. A very good run.

Splits from Bonnell: 9:17, 9:04, 9:02, 8:28, 7:54. Very strong finish, and we all felt really good afterwards. This wasn't a death march by any means. Overall pace for 9.95 miles was 9:06/mile. The last 5.09 miles from the top of Bonnell were clocked off at 8:45/mile average pace, which was quite good. If you include the 2:00 Gatorade/GU stop, the pace for the entire run was 9:20/mile. All the numbers look good to me, but then I was running it, so I'm biased.

After relaxing a bit and having a cup or two of water at the RunTex trucks, we drove over to the central RunTex and made our way over to Auditorium Shores for our post-run striders (did 5x100m of those). We saw all the marathoners finish, and then we did form stuff with Gilbert (hopping and form drills). The hopping stuff nearly wiped out my calves, but it was a fun time, nonetheless. Big group met for stretching, and we groaned through that in pretty good humor. Gilbert had us do two rounds of the hamstring stretch cycle and the IT Band stretch, which wasn't really too bad.

It was good to see all the marathon people again, and we all had the usual happy feeling after sharing our morning's work on the roads. It was a good week for me, mileage wise, as I popped over 30 miles for the first time in a while. I've been taking it easy this summer, and now it's time to start building up for Freescale training.