800's Before the Big Freeze

Ah, yes, Texas weather! This morning while we did our 8x800m workout, it was 50 degrees, damp and heavily overcast. The damp sort of seeped into you, chilling you down more than the temperature would normally indicate. This afternoon, it's around 30 degrees, windy and still yucky outside. Go figure.

Anyway, it turned out to be a pretty good workout. I was sort of sleepy this morning, but by the time we warmed up over to Austin High School, I was feeling fine. My group today for the interval work was Rich and Brian, as usual, plus Emily and David, who are new to me at least. Coach assigned us to do 8 x 800m, aiming for a pace between 3:25 and 3:30 per 800m. 2:00 rest between. It was really dark for almost the entire workout, so it was tough to quickly check our paces as we toured the track, and our consistency was a little off as a result. David and Rich helped with the pace work, and that was good for me, too. Our first 400 was way slow, and we really had to crack it on the second lap to get back on pace. Those first couple of intervals are tough to get dialed in...always. Anyway, after a more evenly paced, but still slightly slow, second interval, we got it together and had a strong last 6 repeats, pulling us easily within Gilbert's assigned range. Emily had to leave after 5 repeats, but the rest of us completed the assignment. On the very last repeat, Gilbert told us to run it hard, and so we did. We stayed together for the first lap, about as fast as we had been running before, and he yelled at us to kick it into gear as he saw us come by. David and Rich went out like rabbits, and suddenly I was way behind, even though I was running hard, I thought. I eventually caught up with Brian, and we finished that last lap together. David knocked out a last lap right at 3:00, which was awfully good.

Our splits: 3:32, 3:31, 3:26, 3:25, 3:23, 3:28, 3:26, 3:13. Average 3:25, or 6:53/mile pace. We were slightly faster than the last 800m repeat workout, and we did more repeats today.

It was nice to get out there and run fast again after a couple of recovery days. My legs were a little tired today after yesterday's trail run and leg weights, but all in all, I'm pleased with what I accomplished. We did 3x200m striders, and Frank and Sean joined us for those. After that, it was time to enjoy a comfortable cooldown jog back to RunTex. It was not a pretty day out, so we didn't stick around for stretching. Warm clothes on, I headed out for my second workout of the morning at the gym. Total miles this morning were just over 8, with 4 miles of repeats in the middle at the aforementioned 6:53/mile average.

We Want to Pump...You Up!

I started things off at Gold's with a good 20 minutes of stretching, mostly for the legs. I needed it this morning. Core stuff was mostly the stuff I didn't do yesterday. I did the Roman Chair leg lifts, the usual sets of floor crunches (160 total of those), and the 3 different plank exercises. Then, off to Upper Body world... The 60 lb. curl bar was in use the entire time I was back in IronWorld, so I kept doing the other exercises on my list, out of order, while waiting on it to come free. Moved up to 100 lbs on bench press, which wasn't that different than 95 lbs (I know, it was 5 lbs different...). At this point, I might need to start moving up 10 lbs. when it comes time to add weight on bench, percentage-wise. We'll see about that. Did 2x8 @ 100 lbs today. Then, I did dumbbell incline presses, moving up to 25 lbs in either hand. So far, so good. At that point, a different guy was using the 60 lb. curl bar, so I just went back to the 50 lb bar and did sets of 15 reps instead of the 8-10 I've been doing at the heavier weight. Seated Rows were after that, and then the tricep extensions with the rope handles. I moved up to 60 lbs on that one. It was a really good upper body workout.

Later today, I went to see Ron for my post-race tuneup massage, and that was just fine except for a really excrutiating bit of digging around in my left calf. It's the first time I've complained, even a little, but he worked out the bad stuff there soon enough. Nothing else was too bad. Ron gave me some ideas of some exercises to consider adding after the marathon in February, so I'll file those away for later.

Now, are we going to get frozen precipitation tonight as predicted? It wouldn't last long, but I'm sure people will freak out over it if it does. :-)