The Tao Of Running [Meriden 1000's]

Rich suggested today's title. It goes to the central point that many of us have made from time to time, that we just do whatever Gilbert asks us to do, in order to get a "Good Job!" from him during one repeat or the other. Today, just a couple of days after the 22 mile training run, we met at RunTex for the long warmup/cooldown version of the Meriden 1000m repeats. Meriden is my favorite workout for some reason, despite the fact that it is difficult. Gilbert had us do the 3.1 mile warmup today, which we covered at around 9:30/mile pace. The warmup was actually pretty funny. The whole mob got started, and at the very end of the pack was Sean and me. We weren't running all that slowly, I thought, but in the darkness, we were all alone after just a half mile or so. All my usual running pals were cruising ahead of us somewhere. It was okay with me, and I got a chance to have a nice chat with Sean, but it was somewhat disconcerting. Along the way, we gathered up Erine, and both he and Sean were still feeling pretty beaten up after the 22 miler. I felt pretty good, actually, but my legs just felt a bit heavy. I picked up the pace a little, and we dragged along and finally caught up with my usual running group at the Lake Austin RunTex, and followed them in from there. We made one goof on the run to Meriden, turning one street too early, and so we had to run the last Meriden hill as the end of our warmup, which was interesting.

Drills drilled, and once again, everyone is getting really short with the distances for those. You can tell that the peeps are feeling the fatigue of a long training season, and the enthusiasm for some of the ancillary stuff is waning a bit. Gilbert warned us again that he wasn't timing the Meriden repeats today, and told us to do only 3 of them, focusing on form both uphill and downhill, in order to loosen up our legs and hips and to get ready for the mostly downhill pounding of the 3M Half Marathon this weekend. After that, 5 uphill striders and 3 backwards striders. We all just took off in a big mob, and my people hung out at the back. I tried to take it easy, and ended up finishing with Brian and Rich. 90 seconds rest and then we did the second one. Brian pointed out during that repeat that "only" doing 3 x Meriden was a piece of cake compared to the usual 5 x Meriden, that repeat number 4 was where the will to continue is the most vulnerable. I thought that was a good observation. All the repeats were done in total darkness, which is sort of surreal, especially on the downhill bits. We got passed by the schoolbus during the last repeat, which made for a lot of fumes as we pushed up that last hill. I ran in with Charlene on that one. Our times weren't that much slower than usual, but I guess 10-15 seconds is a lot when you're talking 1000 meters.

On the 5 uphill striders, I focused very hard on high knee action, which is a weakness of mine. Gilbert corrected me twice on the way down, after strider number two (high knees), and after number three (my left shoulder was dipping). Apparently I fixed those problems, because I got a "Bueno" after repeat number 4. :-) I found a really good gear for the backwards striders, and was moving really quickly up the hill that way, passing a bunch of folks. Maybe I should do Wilkes backwards instead? Uh, no, but it's a thought.

I ran back with Aaron, and although we ran slightly faster than usual, it was a fun conversation. He's an interesting guy, I think, but today we were mainly comparing child rearing notes. My kids are slightly older than his two oldest, so he was checking on what is coming up for him. The 3.1 cooldown miles were knocked out at about 9:15/mile pace.

For the day, it was 9.15 total miles, a good start to the week. We'll probably hit just around 50 miles this week for the last time before Freescale. Last week, I hit just over 47 miles, and I took that extra day off on Thursday instead of doing that second recovery run, so that was a solid week. This week will be the last week where I do all the gym stuff and the regular amounts of leg weight work. Starting next week, I'll cut back to single sets of leg exercises as the long taper begins. Man, the marathon is all of a sudden thisclose to being here. I had my first marathon dream in a while last night, and I was pretty restless as a result. For the record, it was a successful marathon in the dream, so it wasn't a marathon nightmare deal. Those will come later as the race gets even closer.