Circuitry

Some folks who had been MIA for a few workouts returned to join us this morning. Richard and Erine were both there, and it was nice to see them back in the fold, so to speak. Turns out that Richard had a car wreck the afternoon of the Decker Challenge, and was pretty banged up himself last week. Hopefully, he'll get back to normal soon enough. Erine was nursing an Achilles injury, but seems to be on the road to recovery.

Weather was overcast and damp, but moderate 48 degree temperatures. I wore gloves today, just because I had them, but they probably weren't necessary.

Gilbert sent us over to Austin High School via the longer route, so we got 2.7 miles of warmup instead of 1.6. Nice and comfortable running over there with Frank, and we chatted mostly about Saturday's long run and what caused them to be a little off their normal pace. Drills were drilled, and then it was time for circuit training. Gilbert wanted us to stop circuits in something like 20 minutes from the time we started, to do some other fun stuff. With 1200m runs between exercise segments, that meant that I only got in two full circuits. The exercises are pretty easy now that I've been working hard in the gym, but still, with the running and the immediate plunge into exercises, it's an honest workout, and as a recovery type deal, it serves the purpose well.

After everyone had done two circuits, Gilbert had us do some other core stuff, including standard planks, which I do in the gym most times, so that wasn't too tough. Then, we did more core things involving laying (lying?) on our backs, with our feet near our partner's knees, and revolved our legs around each other for 20 revolutions. Hard to explain, but easy to see in person. There was also a variation of that where we did sort of a ballet move with the legs, in and out. Two sets of 20 reps each of those. Then we got off the ground and did two rounds of "Fast Feet." Fun stuff, really.

Frank and Rich joined me for the longer return cooldown run (everyone else went the shorter route), and that made for an enjoyable conversation and run.

After scoring one of the new red long-sleeved Gazelles shirts (it is REALLY red), I stuck around and did the full stretching routine to help my legs continue their recovery from Saturday's long run. I felt pretty good throughout the day, and the lunges, in particular, helped stretch out and loosen my quads.

For the day, 7.4 miles of mostly easy running. Tomorrow is an easy 60 minute or 7 mile run, and then a tempo race on Wednesday. This weekend, our "recovery" medium length run is the jaunt over to and up Mt. Bonnell. Go figure. I like the Bonnell run, though, so that's fine with me.

I'm getting more and more confidence regarding Freescale, with the last really critical step being the 20 mile RunTex race in January. The consensus for a race plan seems to be to do the first 10 mile loop 10-15 seconds slower than marathon race pace, and then drop the pace on the second loop to goal pace or even slightly faster. I need a positive mental experience at that race to complete my race preparation package, since I've faltered at the now defunct Buda 30K race similarly situated in the past. I've got another 20 mile training run before that race, and then it'll be time for racing again. I think we'll be able to run the 3M Half Marathon after that pretty hard, since we've got an extra week between it and Freescale this year. That'll be cool, to be able to rock that downhill course without worrying too much about the marathon after it.