Running Against The Wind

Today was the last really snappy workout before Freescale. We met at RunTex and did the long warmup (2.7 miles) to Austin High School. I ran over with Jennifer, Brian, Jerry and Jerry's son-in-law, Tim. We trailed the rest of the gang by 50 yards or so, but still covered the distance in a pretty quick 9:07/mile. Drills were drilled, and it was time to get going. The wind was pretty darned strong, blowing from the north or northwest, which made it seem much cooler than the actual 54 degrees. Gilbert grouped us up, and assigned our pace group 3:30/800m. 6 repeats, minimum, 8 maximum, 2:00 rest between.

My group was Kristina, Emily, Susan, Jennifer, Charlene, Brian, Marcy, and me. In the dark, it took us a couple of repeats to find the pace, but we ended up with a nice grouping of repeats. I felt a little tired during repeat number 5, but just kept on going, and I felt okay pretty quickly after that. Once I did 6 repeats, I knew I would do all 8, and it got easier towards the end. I didn't have quite the snap that I usually do on the last repeat, but that was okay with me. I picked it up for the last repeast at least, and after Saturday's rather brisk long run, that was all I wanted out of the workout today. I was pleased that we had a lot of people willing to take the lead on the repeats, because with the wind howling around the first turn and backstretch, it was tougher to lead than normal. Brian took a few repeats, I took a few, and Susan, Marcy, Emily and Kristina shared a couple as well. That sure makes it more fun.

Splits: 3:35, 3:31, 3:25, 3:28, 3:29, 3:26, 3:29, 3:23. Average pace 3:29, right on target. We were a little slower than last time with this workout, but the wind is probably largely responsible for that discrepancy.

After we were done, we knocked out 3x200m striders, and soon adjusted our route on the track to do those with a favorable wind. The cooldown jog was back the shorter way, and we covered those 1.6 miles at a still nice 9:06/mile. Good one. As I said, this was the last track work until after Freescale, so spirits were high afterwards. 9.15 miles for the day.

I stuck around and stretched, which I really needed. I was a little beaten up from Saturday, but today's workout helped to get the kinks out. The marathon is really right on top of us, now, and the taper really kicks in at this point. There's nothing we can do to improve things at this point, but there's a lot of ways we can mess things up between now and the 19th.

Oh, yeah, I saw the painted Finish Line marker on Riverside as I drove home today, and it's a little closer than I had thought. That'll make it even better as we steam around that last corner on marathon day.