10 Relaxed Miles [Entered 9/4/05]

With some 5,000 Katrina refugees coming to town this weekend, our little training runs aren't all that significant, but I guess life must go on. The Governor is reporting that Texas has absorbed some 200,000 evacuees from Louisiana, which is a staggering number. Sarah and Jake tell me that there are already some students who've started classes in their middle school who are from the path of Katrina.

As for our run, we started nice and early on a fairly cool day, maybe low 70's. We did the Longhorn Dam loop for 10 miles. Once again, Amy and I ended up pretty much dead last in this increasingly fast group, even on a relaxed day. Jan and Patrick ran with us for a while, but eventually moved ahead and ran with faster folks. Alex and Liliana ran fast after starting slightly behind us. We enjoyed the day, though, and rolled through the lake loop in pretty solid fashion. The splits were fairly consistent, and after a slow first mile or two, we ended up under 9:00 pace for most of the last 2 miles of the run. With 4 miles to go, we saw Thon and Richard up ahead, so we kept the distance between us and them constant, as a game. Thon went on to do the "bonus" 3 miles at Mopac, and Richard joined us there after we took a drink of water for the last 2 miles. The three of us finished up casually, with 9:09 and 9:20 miles at the end. Throughout the run, my legs felt a bit heavy after yesterday's full leg workout, but nothing terrible.

For the day, 10.03 miles, 9:09 average pace. With water stops, 9:31 pace. Just what Gilbert wanted, I think.

I did 8x100m striders after that on the grass at Auditorium Shores, and headed back to RunTex for dry clothes. The stretching session was fun, with a few more groans than usual, since Gilbert was walking around correcting stretching form for a lot of folks.

Alex and I went to Deep Eddy for a cold water soak to finish off the day, which felt great. Now, what am I going to do on Monday when the marathoners do their 10 mile time trial?... I'm thinking a 7 mile trial, followed by 3 miles of easy cooldown running.

Another 30+ mile week, and the mileage creeps upwards...