Zilker 900's [entered 8/5/05]

After the nice long vacation in Asheville, NC, I returned to GazellesWorld this morning for the 900m repeats at Zilker Park. Fun little warmup run over to Zilker was with Amy and the usual gang, and after drills, we were ready to go. My group for the 900's was Kim, David, and Amy. Kim would typically go ahead of us during the repeat, but the group stayed the same for the whole workout. David raced a 25k trail race on Sunday, so he stopped after 4 repeats, but he did great considering the fatigue that must still be hanging around in his legs.

We alternated directions, as usual, and tried to keep Gilbert's "80%" admonition in mind. We ended up really consistent, with times of 4:04, 4:06, 4:04, 3:59 (oops), and 4:05. Overall pace was 7:16/mile, which was perfectly okay. The return run to RunTex was fun, and the speedy day was over. Total mileage 6.5 miles.

I was a little nervous about getting back into speedwork, but this felt like I had never stopped speedy stuff. That was a comfort. I'll be glad when the kids get back into school so that I can get into my full routine, but for now, I'll continue to ease back into the weekly schedule, aiming for a full mileage return by late August.

I did see Frank afterwards, which was nice. They're on a totally different schedule now, with long recovery runs on Tuesday/Thursday, so that they can concentrate on the pace run on Monday and a single speedwork session on Wednesdays. I know they're a little tired, but the new schedule might turn out to be something really cool.