Super Easy Recovery Running

This morning, another crisp and clear one, I met with Sean, Jan and Frank for a relaxed 7 mile loop. We ran clockwise on the trail, starting at 6:30 am, and generally had a good time. The conversation was lively throughout, and we managed to share some gossip, tell some tales, and solve many of the world's problems. Typical Tuesday morning fare. Two brief water stops along the way bulked up the finishing time a bit, so we ended up with just over 7 miles at 9:50/mile pace. Frank had to get going to work after that, but Sean, Jan and I stuck around for the full stretching routine. It was nice in the full morning sun, hanging out with my running friends, and chatting away.

Gilbert came up while we were finishing, and he had done the first 7 mile loop of his birthday running ritual. He runs a mile for each year of his life on his birthday. This year, he'll knock out 31 miles today. Three 7 mile runs, scattered throughout the day, and then a finishing 10 mile loop. That's a pretty cool thing, I think. The Governor finished up his run just after that, and he talked with us for a good while. Kind of cool that the Guv is just a normal runner guy, at least for a short period of time each day. We laughed about the Texas - Texas A&M football game coming up on Friday (the Governor is an A&M graduate), and he predicted that A&M would win, 7-0. He then admitted that his prediction skills aren't the best.

...And a Gym Visit, Too!

That was pretty much it for running, but I wasn't done yet! Jan told me that I should go to her gym for my Essential Exercises, so I accepted that invitation, and we went down to Gold's off of Hwy 71. Since Jan and I would be working out at the same time, I ditched the iPod for this workout. They've made some changes at that Gold's since I last visited, and it is a nice facility. This will be the only gym workout I'll be able to do this week, so I crammed in as much of the full routine as I could. Their back raise apparatus was covered by scaffolding, so I couldn't do those and the oblique raises as I normally would, but otherwise, I got in my core stuff as usual. I introduced Jan to the extended Plank series, and she laughed that she needed a little work on those to get them up to full timing. Karen from the Gazelles was there at the same time, and she came by to pick on us while we were "planking," too. After the core stuff, I knocked out all the leg stuff, including the Butt Blaster machine that Gilbert recommended that I add back into the routine. Finally, it was time for upper body, but Jan had had enough, and headed out while I was in the middle of bench press. I got up to 2x10 of bench at 95 lbs, which was pretty cool. One more time at that rep/weight combination, and I'll move up to the round 100 lb mark, which will be a long way from the 45 lbs I started benching back in the Spring.

A little bit more stretching after the upper body stuff, and I was done. It was a long morning of exercise, but now I'm ready for Turkey Day at least. I'm not really excited about a Tempo Run tomorrow, but that's the last hard workout for the week, so I'll try to gut it out.