800m Repeats

Man, it was great out there this morning! Temps right at 40 degrees, crisp and clear. Since it's fairly suddenly gotten cool here, we're all sort of getting acclimated to the cool mornings, but it's a great problem to have. We're still waiting for the Chicago folks to start filtering back into the morning workouts, but about 20 of us warmed up over to Austin High School's track for some precise speedwork. Once again, it was dark throughout the workout, but by next week, after the time change, it'll be really nice and just enough light to see our watches and such.

Drills drilled, we grouped up for the 800's. I was amused when my group was the second group called to the start line. It's nice when those really fast people aren't there, because we get artificially boosted up the ladder as a result. A new girl was with us, but I didn't get her name since she did just 4 repeats. The main group was Jennifer, Brian, Charlene and me. Gilbert asked us to do one more repeat than we did last time, and assigned us 3:30 as our split times. 2:00 active rest between each repeat, which we needed today with the chilly air. You certainly didn't want to just stand around waiting for the repeat to start. We struggled a tiny bit figuring out the pace in the dark, but we ended up averaging the proper time. Jennifer, Brian and Charlene stopped at 6 repeats, with Brian blasting a great final 800 of 3:12 or something like that, and then I did my 7th repeat alone, picking up the pace nicely as well. It was a good set of repeats, and the cool weather really kept my HR down such that I probably was doing the repeats at Gilbert's mystical 80% effort level. Nice.

Splits: 3:36, 3:33, 3:26, 3:32, 3:29, 3:26, 3:16. Average pace 3:28 again, just under 7:00/mile pace for 5600 meters of speedwork. I'm happy about that.

Brian and I did 2x200m striders afterwards, and I felt pretty darned good. No real stiffness or aches. Then, Matt, Brian and I did a nice cooldown run back to RunTex.

It was just a fun day of running again. I stretched afterwards, enjoying the morning after getting warm clothes on, and then headed to Einstein's bagel shop for breakfast. I scored a hot cup of tea (Cinnamon Spice breakfast tea, which was really good with honey and lemon) and a bagel, and hung out getting warmed up with the sun streaming in through the windows. That quiet time just contemplating the world while enjoying the tea and bagel was pretty darned good.

After that, it was time for an early massage appointment, and Ron worked over my legs. The usual sore spots in the tibia muscles and calves, but basically, I'm doing a good job of taking care of my legs. I only thought about asking him to back off once, on the right calf muscle, but I got through it. Maintenance complete, the running day was done. For the day, 7.4 miles. This week will be a little lower in mileage, which is fine with me. 10-12 miler on Saturday will be nice and hilly, again, and Thursday is the usual easy 60 minute recovery run. It'll be good to have most of the Chicago folks back with us on Saturday.