Fartleks for Capitol 10,000

As we say every time, this was the standard Wednesday workout prior to a weekend race, a session of fartlek accelerations sandwiched into a 7 mile run on the trail. We had a big group this morning, with Brian back after his skiing weekend, Amy, Rich, Richard, Colleen, Frank, and Emily. 20 minutes easy running led into 10 x 1:00 accelerations with 1:00 rest, and with that big of a group, only Brian and Emily had to lead more than one interval. It was fun today, with the pace pickups being reasonable for a change, and after a nice 2 miles of cooldown afterwards, we had had a good day at the running office. We even did our 5x100m striders. I felt much better on this than I did yesterday, so it was definitely the shoes on Tuesday that caused my discomfort. Weather was very humid, but cool at 60 degrees. Perfectly acceptable running weather.

We got 7 miles of running, average pace was 9:01. If you add in the one minute water stop, it was more like 9:10/mile, but who cares, really? The acceleration miles were 2.3 miles at 8:17/mile, which includes all those recovery intervals as well, so we were moving quite nicely, thank you.

Recovery on Old Shoes

Ah, yes. A beautiful spring afternoon, pleasant temperatures around 70 degrees, and it was time for a quick recovery run. I had planned on an hour's run, nice and easy. However, I also wore my lucky 13th pair of Creations for this run, hoping to get a few more runs in them before they are retired. Within the first half mile of the run, my shins were screaming at me. When shoes go dead, they go fast. I stuck it out for around 40 minutes, but just couldn't take it anymore after that. On pavement, those shoes absolutely won't cut it anymore. I managed to get in 4.2 miles, average pace 9:05/mile, so it wasn't a totally lost day, but it wasn't much fun, either. I did some balance drills afterwards to loosen up the hips and legs, and that helped, but those shoes won't be used again unless I'm going to be on a softer running surface! Time to get the 15th pair of Mizunos to start rotating in with my current Freescale 2006 pair.

Meriden, the LP version

The wacky weather delivered a humid 65 degree morning to us today, after the crisp weekend weather. Go figure. Gilbert had those of us doing longer races this spring and summer leave from the main RunTex location for a long warmup/cooldown, so Carrie, Amy, Tonya, Frank, Rachel, Colleen, and Jennifer all left together for the journey to Meriden for the 1000m hilly repeats. It seems like forever to get all the way over to the Meriden hills, but it's really only 3.1 miles. Going over, we averaged 9:30/mile, a reasonable warmup pace. The people who left from the Lake Austin RunTex were done with drills when we got there, so I did an abbreviated set of drills just to loosen up a bit, and it was time to start repeating.

I paired up with Carrie, who I thought told me that Gilbert wanted her to run with me so I could pace her through the workout. Turns out, Carrie usually goes out too fast and hates the last repeats at Meriden, so she just decided that I'd be a good pace partner for the day. I didn't find that out until later, though. And, right before we started, I foolishly asked Gilbert how many repeats I should do. He said, "For you, there is no question!" Chastened, I joined Carrie at the start line for the first of 5 repeats. :-)

I guess I did what Carrie needed, but as the repeats went on, and on, and on, we each had times when we were doing the pace work. The first repeat was faster than I usually start, and we got faster on every subsequent repeat, which is how I hope the workout goes every time. On the last repeat, though, on the way up that first tough hill, I was thinking how great it would be if Carrie pulled away on that one so I could back off a little. Sadly, I found another gear instead, and stayed with her until the last hill to the finish, where I pushed ahead slightly. It was yet another example of what subtle peer pressure from within your pace group can do for you.

Splits: 4:56, 4:55, 4:50, 4:47, 4:45. Average pace probably 7:14/mile on a hilly course. Average split was 4:51, quicker than I usually have done this workout. Carrie really helped today to get me to push a little harder, and it didn't feel like seriously bad running. Yes, my legs felt pretty dead on that hill starting the fifth repeat, but I pushed through that. And, yes, I had to put hands on knees to catch my breath after the last couple of repeats, but during the runs themselves, I felt more or less in control of my pace. It was a great Meriden workout!

Of course, that's just the main course for Meriden. There was still dessert to come. 5 uphill striders, which were actually pretty reasonable today, and then 3 backwards uphill striders, which I managed to finish this time without falling on my butt. Once done, your quads are pretty well cooked, but it's a good kind of tired, right?

I paired up with Frank for the cooldown run, and we ran along with Amy and Tonya for a pretty sprightly 8:45/mile average for the 3.1 cooldown miles. For the day, 10.1 miles, and that makes for a nice start to the running week!

I stuck around for most of the full stretching routine with Carrie, and then it was time to get going. Now, will I get back to the gym this week? That seems to be the big question for me. The running seems to be totally on track...but the gym is an important part of the whole package, too.

Rollercoaster! (Say What?) Oooh Oooh Oooh! [Entered 3/27/06]

Saturday was a new and interesting long run with the Gazelles. Gilbert wanted us to run the first, hilly part of the Capitol 10,000 course and then do Scenic and then Mountain Bonnell for those of us training for half marathons and beyond. So, 6:00 am and we were off. It was pretty chilly, around 38 when we started, but for me that was fun running weather. Our pretty large crew was Rich, Jennifer, Rachel, Volel, Luis, Colleen, and somebody else(?). Maybe that was the whole gang. At any rate, over to the start of the Cap 10K course, and then up Congress, around the Capitol to the right (that's new this year), and back on course on 15th Street. I think the new course is slightly more hilly. Perhaps they've done this to add a tiny bit of distance early so that they can move the finish line back to avoid the traffic circle now on Riverside? We were a chatty bunch, of course. We went straight on Enfield and then down Exposition to hit the O. Henry water/Powerade stop there. That finished the Capitol 10K portion of the festivities. Since I had 'em, I took a GU there.

Splits miles 1-4.24: 9:30, 9:24, 9:22, 9:03, and .23 miles at 8:33. Average so far 9:17/mile. A fairly concise 2:10 water stop, and we were off.

Scenic was enjoyable for me, at least. It was quite pretty as we saw the early morning mist coming off the lake, and we realized yet again why those folks pay so much for their houses along the shore. Those people not doing longer races turned at Enfield to head back for 10 miles, leaving our sturdy crew of Jennifer, Rachel, Luis and me to continue on to Mt. Bonnell. I think we backed off slightly from previous runs up Scenic and Bonnell, but it was still well paced. When we got to Bonnell itself, I went ahead and pushed on up the hill, and that was pretty satisfying. Everyone else got up in good fashion, too. I chatted briefly with Alex and Frank at the Bonnell Powerade stop, took a second GU, and it was time to get moving again. So far, so good, and from here the course seems so much easier. I guess when you are standing on top of a mountain, it surely can't get any hillier when you start out going downhill like that, right?

Splits miles 5-8.7: 8:53, 9:09, 9:05, 8:43, and 0.41 miles up Bonnell at 8:57/mile pace. Average pace so far 9:07/mile. Another Powerade/GU stop in 3:16, which includes some time spent waiting for the group to reform.

Down Balcones Woods, Jennifer and Rachel discussed interior decorating and paint selection, which was amusing. Up the tough little hill on 35th, then down the Exposition and finally to O. Henry again for the last Powerade/GU stop. I took a last GU just because I had it with me. I was feeling great by now, and I was ready for the "fast finish" to the day.

Splits miles 9-12: 8:41, 8:44, 8:49, 0.3 miles at 8:41/mile pace. Overall, 9:01 running pace. Last water stop was 1:56.

On the fast finish, I heard footsteps for the first mile, and then after that, I crossed the Mopac bridge and ran alone to the finish. It was certainly a strong effort, but I didn't think I was going quite as quickly as I was. Despite some traffic issues on the trail (the beautiful weather brought out lots of extra people today), I was able to run how I wanted all the way to the tape.

Splits miles 13-15: 1.2 miles at 7:41, 7:30, 7:46. Overall pace dropped to 8:43/mile, a good run by any measure on that course. With the three water stops included, pace for the day was 9:12/mile. Final mileage was 15.27. It was really cool to drop to sub-half marathon pace for the last 3.2 miles, and served as a big confidence booster for me.

5x100m striders, then the full stretching session in the warm morning sun. Nice. I joined the Janiaks, Alex, and Connie for a big breakfast at Magnolia Cafe again this week, and that just finished off a great morning of running.

For the week, I was still at 38 miles since I skipped the Thursday recovery run. It was a good week, though.

Goin' Round and Round

Today was one of those workouts that makes you dizzy, but is a necessary element of any training program: 15 x 400m repeats on the track. We did 20x400m a month or so before Freescale, so this was a shorter workout than that, but it's still a lot of laps. When I got to RunTex, I stayed in my truck until I had to get out, a little sleepy, and once Gilbert arrived, the bulk of the troops left for the track. Gilbert needed to update his new phone, so I stayed for a moment so he could enter all my phone numbers. Once that was done, it was closer to 6:00, and only Amy and Frank were still around. So, our little group scurried off to the track, chatting away, and we arrived not too far behind the rest of the folks. It was nice out there, by the way, crisp, clear and 45 degrees. My kind of running weather.

Drills drilled, it was time for the assignment. The Boston people had to do 20x400m, and Gilbert sent them off right away. The rest of us were split into two groups as well. Those folks only doing 10K racing this spring were to do 10-12 x 400m, trying to drop their times as the workout went along in groups of 4 repeats. Those were to be done with only the 1:00 rest between repeats. Those of us doing the Indy half marathon had to do 15 x 400m, with the 1:00 rest between repeats, but also after every 5 repeats, we were to jog a 400m lap. So, 3 sets of 5x400m repeats, dropping our per lap times by 2 seconds each set.

We started with our friends, so our initial group was Amy, Rich, Richard, Brian, Rachel, and Jennifer. We took turns leading the laps, and by the end of those 5 laps, we had ended up with the 1:40 target average that I had hoped for. At that point, Richard, Jennifer and I did our first jogged lap, and the others stayed on the other schedule. Jennifer is doing Boston, of course, and wanted to stay with us instead of trying to chase the other, faster, Boston people. We even had Frank with us on that jog lap, so we did some chatting as we went around. The next set was pretty successful, too, and I was glad to have Richard with me. It's hard to keep your pacing on target when you're by yourself on the track, and we helped each other by taking turns leading those laps. One more jogged lap, and time for the last set. We were supposed to get down to 1:36 or so on this set, and I guess we did our job. I took us through those last 3 laps, and armed with the knowledge that Richard was right there, counting on my pace work, we finished in good fashion. The end of a long running day...

Splits: 1:42, 1:41, 1:41, 1:40, 1:39 for the first set. 1:40.5 average, right on target. Second set was 1:40, 1:38, 1:37, 1:38, 1:37. 1:38 average on the nose. Perfect. Last set was 1:37, 1:34, 1:35, 1:35, 1:31, for a 1:34 average for the set.

Overall, I averaged 1:37.5 for all 15 repeats, which was quicker than the 1:39 average in the last time I did the big 400m repeat workout. This is another encouraging sign that I may be due for a big PR at the Capitol 10,000.

We ran back to RunTex with Frank, Jennifer and Colleen. Richard ran partway back, and then turned around to go back to his car (he parked at the track due to a morning meeting). We were a little quicker going back, but still within cooldown pace range. For the day, 7.4 miles.

I stretched just a little bit after we got back, and after some conversation with Rich and Colleen, it was time to get back in the warm car. It was chilly standing around in damp clothing, of course. Another great day at the running office.

The long run on Saturday should be interesting, featuring the hilly part of the Cap 10K course and then the Scenic loop plus a Bonnell ascent. That should total between 15 and 16 miles. I'll be able to run with the normal gang for the first 4 miles or so, and then, depending on what they decide to do, I may be alone for quite a while. I'm hopeful that they'll want to tag along until the point at which I peel off to do the Bonnell climb.

Crystal Blue Persuasion

This was a gorgeous morning, temp of 48 degrees, crisp and clear. The sunrise and morning sky was spectacular as we finished our little recovery run. I met Frank down at RunTex for the Tuesday 7 miler, and we had a pleasant little run around Town Lake. I felt great, and in general it was a fun time. Lots of conversation and people watching, and we even got to hang out with some of the Tuesday/Thursday Gazelles when they returned to RunTex from their mile repeat workout. We knocked out 5 x 100m striders once we finished our run, and I didn't even hate them this time.

Got a chance to talk with Pete and Alex as we stretched, which was a treat. I don't see Pete that often anymore since I've switched to M/W, so we always have lots to talk about when we do meet. Alex was cold, and cut his stretching short to get warmed up. It was pretty cool once you stopped running.

For the day, 7 miles, more or less, average pace right at 9:00/mile. Tomorrow, 15 x 400m repeats. Yee haw!

Mile After Mile

Monday, it was time to get back to work with the Gazelles. A very small crew gathered (10 people, tops) for the warmup run from RunTex. Thankfully, most of them were my pace pals (Emily, Rich, Richard and Brian), so that worked out for us. Jennifer was there, but since she's on the Boston Plan, she had an alternate easier workout. They did 22.5 miles on Saturday, with some big hills in there, so they deserved an easy recovery day. Weather muggy but nice and cool, about 60 degrees. Good running weather.

The warmup was fun, and we eased over to Zilker Park at something like 10:00/mile pace. That was good, because I was feeling pretty tired this morning from lack of sleep. Having to wake up early yesterday cheated me out of my usual extra sleep on Sunday morning. Drills, and then it was time to get rolling. Gilbert told us to do 3-4 x mile repeats on the rolling Zilker course, "a little faster" since we were not doing 5. I led the first repeat for sort of a relaxed extended warmup, and was surprised when we saw the 7:28 split. It felt a lot closer to 8:00 pace while we were doing it. 2 minutes of rest, and it was off again, going the other direction on the loop course. Brian took over pacing about halfway through that one, and we chased him to the finish at a quick 7:01. The third repeat was another Brian-led affair, at 7:00. Richard had a couple of maladies on that one, first dropping his wedding ring (a bad side effect of slimming down with all that running), and then slipping and falling as he finished off the repeat. I hope he's okay. Anyway, I conned the rest of the tribe into doing that fourth repeat, and Brian and I led that one in 6:57.

A very consistent set of repeats after that first "comfortable" one, for a 7:06.5 average pace. That's a 5 second/mile improvement over the last time we did mile repeats, so that's very exciting to me. Maybe I'm due for a big PR at the Capitol 10,000?

The cooldown run was a little quicker than the warmup, at about 9:00/mile pace, but we still had fun. For the day, I clocked 7.7 miles, a good start to the week.

Today's post-run confab was with Rich, catching up with him since he and Christina had their son 10 days ago. Benjamin is doing fine, and his parents are doing the best they can with those early days of the new baby in the house. Sleep is a precious thing at that point. I followed that up with good stretching, and that was the running day.

Water Stop Fun

Sunday, about 30 Gazelles gathered to man the water stop at about the 7 mile mark of the River City 10 Miler. We had a blast, despite the drizzle, rain and chill. It was fun to see a bunch of runners that I knew, including Gazelles and folks from Galloway days. We almost got in trouble with the police because of our microphone and amp (used to cheer on the runners), because we were located around some pricey condominium real estate. When we agreed to turn off the mic, all was good, but it sure would have been cool to have a stop where we could kick up the volume. We prepared water in quantities suggested by the race organizers, and ended up with hundreds of unused cups of water, which were emptied into the street. Anyway, it felt good to give back a little bit by volunteering after running so many races in the fall and winter. I should pick another spring race for volunteer duty, just for fun.

The race was a big success, and Frank even won his division for the first time ever! Very cool.

Zoom!

We had a nice little group today for the Scenic loop "medium" long run. On a drizzly day that was good only for ducks, yards, and runners, we set out at 6:30 for our 11-12 mile journey. Amy was back after a couple weekends of long bike rides, and Emily, Rachel, Brian and Richard were there as well. We started off really easy, and by the first quick water stop at Mopac, we had dialed in our speed pretty well. It was pretty funny going by all the folks sitting in their cars along Veterans Blvd. as they sat with gloom in their eyes, surveying the drizzle and rain before they got out to run. We were well into our run by then, and happily went by them, but we could tell exactly what they were thinking. :-) Hitting Lake Austin Blvd., I guess I got moving along a little faster, and by the time we got to Scenic Blvd., there were polite requests from the gang to back off a little. So, in order to accomplish that, they requested the long-promised bachelor party story from me. I won't repeat it here, but it was a long story. 3 miles as we ran. I suppose it slowed me down a little, but we still moved along pretty well. At the dry cleaners where we got our second water stop and some took GU's, we were right at 6 miles into our day, with some good running already behind us. More than halfway done, the mood was good.

Splits, miles 1-6: 10:28, 9:43, .28 miles at 8:59 (brief water stop), 8:30, 8:50, 8:59, 0.8 miles at 8:45/mile pace. 6.1 miles, 9:13/mile running pace.

While we were getting organized to move on, we saw the Boston marathoners coming our way from Mt. Bonnell. We gathered up with them, and especially took in Jennifer, who was running in her own pack, more or less. That may have sped us up for the next several miles, since they were a little quicker than we normally are. Carrie, Jason, Amy (the other Amy), and Jennifer made our little mob a good bit bigger. Up 35th, down Exposition, to O. Henry Middle School and the last water stop. Richard decided to try to regain some of his hill climbing mojo on this stretch, and had some fun accelerating about halfway down Exposition. We were all a little giddy by now, with the drizzle, rain and general weather conditions. Some faster miles along here, too. I messed up with the buttons on the GPS watch, so I don't have individual mile splits for this short section. However, I think it works out to 2.2 miles, which we covered at an average 8:29/mile. So far, at the last water stop, we were at 8.3 miles, 9:02/mile average running pace.

The last 3.1 miles or so are usually "fast finish" miles. After sort of a relaxed first fast mile, most of us really kicked it in over the last couple of miles. Brian pulled ahead, and finally after waiting a bit, I accelerated. It felt fairly tough, but I wasn't in agony or anything. I concentrated on keeping a steady pace, and focused on catching Brian. I managed to close the gap on him a fair amount, but he finished up the road ahead of me a ways. It was a really strong finish, as it turns out.

Splits miles 9-11.4: 8:16, 7:59, 7:29 (!). Very nice finish. Overall, 11.4 miles, 8:44/mile running pace. With stop time included, it was a still solid 9:18/mile. Good run, for sure. Everyone else finished pretty soon after Brian and I did, and we even did striders like good little Gazelles.

For the week, 5 runs, 37 miles. Next week, I should get up to about 42-45 miles, with a long run of maybe 14-16 miles on Saturday.

A silly stretching session in the drizzly conditions finished off the morning's exercise, and then it was time to think about food. Alex convinced me that a good breakfast would be a fine idea, so we joined the Janiak's for a hearty repast at Magnolia Cafe. Lots of fun conversation, and the food was just what we needed.

A fun day at the running office. Tomorrow, we have the River City 10 miler. I'll be volunteering at the Gazelles water stop, so that should be interesting.

1-2-3-4!

This was the fourth day in a row of running, the first time back to that full routine since Freescale. Everything checked out just fine today on a regular recovery run in the 'Hood. The GPS lost lock a bunch of times, even though there weren't trees in the way. The heavily overcast skies must have done it. I was able to calculate the proper mileage anyway, based on previous runs in the 'hood, but it was a drag to lose the value of the data on the GPS watch. Weather was muggy, but not terribly warm. I just had fun roaming the neighborhood, dodging the garbage and recycling trucks and the kids on bikes (home for spring break). After an easy first mile or two, I ended up with about 5.8 miles, 52 minutes and change, 9:02/mile pace. I felt good throughout, and I was happy to be out there. Saturday will be a 10 miler on the Scenic loop, so I should end up with about 35-37 miles this week.

Now, I've got to go and sit myself down for extended viewing and bracket watching for the NCAA basketball tournament. It's probably my favorite sporting event of the year, with the Tour de France, The Masters, and then NFL football trailing behind. Go Winthrop!

Tempo Race

I had a restless night of sleep last night, and so despite the glorious running weather this morning (50 degrees, crisp and clear), I wasn't feeling up to a big effort for today's scheduled 4 mile tempo run/race. I seem to always have a medium level of dread for this workout, just that you know it's going to be consistently tough for around 30 minutes. Somehow, doing big numbers of repeats at fast pace doesn't seem nearly as daunting as the tempo race. Anyway, the rather small crowd (like Wilke, this workout draws the smallest numbers of Gazelles...funny, that) rolled through the 2.2 miles of warmup, and drills were drilled. Those folks running the 10 Miler on Sunday (Frank and a few others) left earlier for a 7 mile fartlek workout as usual, and the Boston people had some other special workout. That left maybe 12 of us for the tempo race. No, it's not a "tempo run" as defined in a zillion running articles and books, but a hard 4 miler aiming for a negative split coming home. We always joke that Gilbert tells us to run the 4 mile tempo run at 5K race pace, and sometimes it seems that's what we're doing. My "PR" for this run is 28:57, set a long time ago in the fall. I hoped to be somewhere in that range, under 30 minutes.

We toed the line, and Gilbert sent us off with little preamble. There was a large group of beginner Gazelles there, and they cheered us as we took off on our journey. That was actually kind of cool. Anyway, despite my protestations to the contrary, I ran away from Amy and Brian early, and chased down Jennifer for the first mile. I caught and passed Jennifer, and hit the one mile mark at a fairly relaxed 7:57. I was running totally alone now, with no one in the Gazelles to chase, but I kept pushing the pace a little more, hitting the turnaround with a 7:26 second mile and a 15:23 halfway mark. Not bad considering I was feeling off my game before we started. As I headed back, I noted that Brian was closest to me, and I had maybe a 60-70 yard lead on him.

I picked it up a little more during mile 3, and was closer to a hard run now. I still felt okay, but I knew I was really running during this mile. I started playing the mileage countdown game here, and used other runners on the trail as targets to chase. Anything to distract me a little. Anyway, I hit the mile 3 mark with a 7:04 split, which is really good for me. I did not look back, but during the later stages of mile 4, I thought I heard footsteps behind me, and picked it up even more in the last quarter mile, for a tiny finishing kick. It was cool to see a 7:11 last mile split once I crossed the line, for a total 29:38 time, 7:25/mile overall pace. Second half was 14:15, a big negative split, and I held pace well over the last two miles. Good job! Turns out, Brian had closed on me a little during the last two miles, and he ended up just 3 or 4 seconds behind me. That was a big PR for him today. He's getting really strong.

This was my second fastest time ever for this run, and that was great to see. If Gilbert's usual idea is correct, then 7:25 pace should be a target for the Capitol 10,000 in a few weeks.

5 x 100m striders later, we were done. I hung out and talked with Frank, Jason, and Gilbert afterwards, and it was generally a good day at the running office. I felt fine on my third consecutive day of running (for the first time since before Freescale), and all systems seem to be "go" for me. Except for returning to gym work, I've been a good Gazelle since Freescale, so if I'll just go to Gold's tomorrow or Friday, it'll be a great week of exercise.

Just What The Doctor Ordered

No doctor involved, but that Ted Nugent song popped up during today's run on the iPod. Anyway, this week, I'm adding back in the fifth day of running per week, with the Tuesday recovery run. I had planned on going 35-40 minutes, nice and easy. The weather was nice, breezy, sunny and in the high 60's, I think. Since the kids are home, I headed out around 11:00 am, and hit the neighborhood loops. With the GPS, I did some exploring on some side streets previously not visited on foot, which was a fun diversion. First mile was around 9:40 pace, but by mile 3, I was under 9:00 pace, running nice and free. On the way back up Jester, Mike Carter joined me. He had been driving up to run on the trail, but when he saw me, he pulled over and joined me for a while instead on his way to the trail. I suppose I was his warmup run partner.

We had a nice chat as we rolled up Jester. So nice, in fact, that instead of stopping there at the house, I continued with him for a while longer, which ended up adding a mile or so to my day. No big deal. I left him to do his trail run, and turned back for the house. All things considered, it was a really nice run. Legs felt great, and I think I worked the last of the Wilke stiffness out of them. For the day, right at 5 miles, just under 9:00/mile pace. Those last couple of miles with Mike were in the 8:30 range, still comfortable, but not necessarily "recovery" pace. Now, I just have to get ready for the tempo race/run in tomorrow morning's Gazelles workout...

W-W-W-Wilke!

It was only a matter of time, and this week we returned to Wilke for the hill repeats. Frank, Jennifer, and I met at RunTex for the long warmup/cooldown version of the workout, which I prefer. By the time I get done with the longer cooldown run, I've forgotten the actual repeats. :-)

The weather was nice, overcast and mid-60's with some breeze. We had fun going over to Wilke, and merged with the others at the parking lot nearer Wilke. 2.7 miles at about 9:30 pace, nice and easy. Drills done, Gilbert gave us our prescription: Boston people had to do 10xWilke, the rest of us "only" 7xWilke, then 3 backwards hills and 3 shorter uphill striders. That's an extra backwards repeat, but what the heck.

I did the first repeat hanging out towards the back of the pack, finding my form and my pace. During the second repeat, I was moving up a few spots, when Gilbert called to me and said "Why are you running with the back pack?" Dammit, I was caught. So, I picked it up a little during that repeat. By the time we were on the 5th repeat, I had moved ahead of all the regular people except Brian and Frank, who were just ahead of me. There were, of course, some truly fast people ahead of us, about 3 or 4 of them, but I'm speaking of the normal Gazelles, not the superhuman ones. That was pretty satisfying, to actually seem to be stronger than some of the troops for a change on this difficult workout. I started the 6th and 7th repeat with Brian and Frank, but finished each of those just behind them. Except for some gasping on the last two repeats, I didn't hate this too much today.

The first two backwards repeats felt fine, except for the burning in my quads as the hill kicked up at the end of the repeat. The third repeat was going to be a challenge, though. My quads were truly cooked by now. I almost made the last repeat without walking, but I broke just near the crest of the hill and took a few walking steps. Emily, ahead of me on the hill, gave me a few words of encouragement, and I managed to pick it back up for the finish of the repeat. We finished things off with the very short (maybe 20-30 yards) uphill striders at the top of the hill, which actually helped settle my legs down and gave some relief to my quads. It was a serious workout, though, and I think I did well. It may have been my best Wilke performance ever. My times on the main repeats were extremely consistent, with a spread of only 2 seconds between fastest and slowest repeat.

At the bottom of the hill, we recharged with Powerade and listened to Gilbert's hilarious recap of the birth of his second daughter, Grace. There were indeed plenty of people there to help his wife, but it sounds to me like he just hung out until it was time for him to cut the cord.

Frank and I ran back together, and did the slightly longer version that was along the trail all the way to RunTex. 2.8 miles, 9:19/mile. Altogether, about 7.6 miles to start my running week. As I said before, I'm pleased with how this workout went. I always dread Wilke, but maybe I'm getting stronger and figuring out how to do this one finally?

The Hills Are Alive... [Entered 3/13]

Saturday, Gilbert told Alex, Frank, Richard and I that we should do Bonnell for 13-14 miles instead of the 7-10 miles that everyone not doing a spring marathon was doing. It was a bit of a jump from the 7 mile run last week, but hey, we just ran a marathon a few weeks ago, right? This was the end of my first Gazelles week since Freescale, but I was feeling just fine. Weather was muggy and low 70's, not awful, but not great, either. Jennifer, Richard, Liliana and Brenna joined me for our pace group for the run this morning. Volel ran ahead with Frank and Alex.

Off we went. It was actually light enough to see, even at 6:00, so we had fun just cruising along, chatting away. We stayed together to the boat docks at the lake, where we tried to get a drink of water, but the water at the docks was turned off. Schade. We picked it back up, and found another group's water cooler on Scenic Road, so due to the situation, we took advantage of that and grabbed a quick drink there. So far, we were having fun, but the course was turning hilly.

Splits: 9:46, 9:34, 9:25, 9:15, 9:45 (for .72 miles). 4.8 miles, 9:32 overall pace. Relaxed return to long running, I'd say. 1:22 water stop.

The hillier section that led up to Bonnell and that climb was fun, but once we hit Pecos, I started to pull away a little. Liliana turned back at Pecos for her 10 mile planned run. I was alone going to Bonnell and up the long climb, but I just set a steady pace, and actually enjoyed it a little bit. While I waited at the cooler, sipping Powerade and taking a GU, I chatted with Frank, who was headed back down the hill with Anne. Once we regrouped on top of Bonnell, it was time to get going. I was having fun now.

Splits 9:18, 8:48, and a quarter mile up Bonnell at 9:30/mile. 7 mile total, average pace down to 9:24/mile. I ended up spending just over 5 minutes waiting on everyone to get up the hill and regroup, but for the company, it was time well spent.

Over to Balcones Woods, down to 35th, up that hill to Exposition, and then it was time to roll up and down Exposition to the Powerade stop at O. Henry school. I was alone again by then, after having picked it up considerably on Exposition. It's the kind of terrain that I suppose I do well on, resembling the Decker course. As I was leaving, the other guys had arrived for their water stop, but I went on to finish alone. I did another GU there, just for fun, along with the Powerade.

Splits 9:09, 9:20, 8:20, and .42 miles at 8:20. Overall, 10.3 miles at 9:13/mile. I didn't know if I had a "fast finish" in me, but I just ran how I felt from there.

Down to the trail again, I was feeling good. I wasn't blasting it or anything, but I wasn't loafing, either. There was some crowding on the trail, but nothing we haven't dealt with before. I rolled to the finish at Auditorium Shores feeling pretty satisfied with my day. A quick cup of water or two, and a brief dunking under the outdoor shower, and I was rejuvenated. It was warmer than it seemed, and we're still not acclimated to it yet.

Splits 8:15, 8:17, 1.25 miles at 8:27 to finish. Overall, 13.5 miles at exactly 9:00/mile pace, running time. With the water stop time included, pace dropped to 9:41/mile, but it's entirely okay with me. A good run.

I did only 3 x 100m striders, and then we had the big stretch-o-rama on the grass there at Auditorium Shores. It was all good natured fun, and the day was done. I'm happy with how I did today, and I'm looking forward to the rest of Indy training this spring.

For the week, I'm up to 31 miles. Next week, I'll add the Tuesday recovery run back in now that the post-marathon recovery period is done.

More Recovery Running

Today I went out late for a little over 45 minutes of easy recovery running. This is stretching it out a bit from last week's 30 minute recovery run, but still nice and easy. I just ran in the 'hood for the most part, but I sneaked onto the water tower trail at the end of the run for about 10 minutes of peaceful running. It's golden cheeked warbler time, and theoretically, we're banned from the wilderness area until late July. Didn't stop me tonight, though.

Average pace about 9:15/mile, almost exactly 5 miles, and it felt great throughout. Now, will I get motivated to return to the gym tomorrow?

Return to the Track

I guess I actually hurt my left wrist more than I first thought on Monday. Yesterday, it was pretty painful to grip anything with the left hand, so I didn't go to the gym as planned. I know, I could have still done core stuff and the leg weights, but hey... :-) It's a little better today.

Gilbert and his wife had their second child last night at 8:00pm, so he sent Bernard as a substitute coach. Mother and child are both doing well, and the family is very happy.

Anyway, I met up with the gang at RunTex on this muggy 68 degree morning for our visit to Austin High School's track. It was a fairly small crew, it seems, but we headed out on time and cruised the trail over to AHS. I was talking with Richard, and passed the turn for the Pfluger bridge by accident. I figured it out soon enough, and we made our way over to the track without further incident. The rest of our pace group followed me willingly, by the way, wrong turns and all. That was funny.

There was a large group of beginner Gazelles there at the track, as well as Rogue training, so it was fairly busy there. Drills drilled, we were ready to roll. I thought the workout as posted on the website was to do a 600m interval at 10K pace, jog 200m, then run a 400m interval at 10K pace, followed by 1:00 rest. Then, repeat that set 3-5 times. Richard and I did some calculations on the way over, and came up with 1:52 for 400m and 2:48 for the 600's, based on a projected 47:00 10K. So, that became our targets for the workout.

The group was Emily, Amy, Richard, Brian, Jennifer, Colleen, Rachel and me. We did a pretty good job on pacing, and the workout actually felt pretty comfortable. We finished 3 sets, and I managed to convince the tribe to do one more with me. We did them at an average pace 10 seconds per mile faster than last year at this time, which is a good thing. We even talked during some of the intervals.

Splits: (600/400) - 2:46/1:54, 2:50/1:56, 2:47/1:51, 2:45/1:43. Overall pace was 7:27/mile for 4000m of intervals. It turns out that we were supposed to do a longer ladder, going 600/400/200 meters at pace on each set. Oh, well. I think we got plenty out of the work that we did.

Cooldown run was fun as usual, and then I stuck around to do most of the full stretching routine. It's sure different now that the cool weather seems to have ended around here, but I had a good morning nonetheless. For the day, 6.7 miles. Tomorrow, it's time to stretch out the recovery run to 45 minutes or so...

Life In The Fast Lane

This morning, it was time to return fully to Gazelles training. My two week recovery period from Freescale is over, and this week I'm getting back to the fast stuff. Today was one of my favorite workouts, the Meriden 1000's. Gilbert was running late (turns out he was making sure people weren't leaving from the main RunTex), so we scooted out from the Lake Austin RunTex at a little after 6:00. The usual very short warmup run of .6 miles was uneventful, and we got most of the drills done by the time Gilbert arrived. It seemed that on every drill, more people were showing up, so by the time we were ready for the repeats, we had quite a crowd. There are a ton of new beginner class people, so it was pretty full today. It amused me that, now that the marathon has come and gone, we are back to doing the full length on each drill.

Gilbert warned us that we were still not quite over Freescale, so we got to do the first repeat as a warmup, and were to do 3 repeats, maybe 4. I ran most of the repeats with Brian, Amy, Colleen, Rachel and Emily. We actually chatted a little during the first repeat, then got more serious on the last two. It was a nice pickup over the three repeats, knocking big chunks of time out each time around. I was feeling pretty good, and enjoyed the workout as usual.

Splits: 5:19, 5:04, 4:47. Average 5:04, not too bad, about 7:30/mile pace. The last two were in the usual range, so I'm happy with the workout. Next time, we'll add another repeat or two. The intervals are about .66 miles.

After that, we finished things off with the uphill striders and backwards running uphill. The 5 x 150 meter uphill striders were all about form, but you still work pretty hard bounding up a hill. I'm usually pretty good with the backwards running bit, and the first backwards repeat was great. On the second one, there were a lot of slower folks who were either walking or moving very slowly, and I guess I got tangled up right at the top of the hill while looking around trying to see where the clear path was. I went down pretty hard, and hit my left hand and wrist as well as the, um, right hip. It was a "thud" situation. I took a little time to get my wits about me, and then it was time for the cooldown run.

I conned the crew into doing the longer cooldown run, up to Enfield, over to Exposition, and back to RunTex along Lake Austin Blvd. I ran up front with Frank, and we had a nice chat as we went along. It ended up being 2 miles that way, which we covered at around 9:00/mile pace. I think I'll make that my usual recovery run for Meriden in the future.

Anyway, for the day, just short of 6 miles. Except for the crash, I had a great time today. It's no fun to have muggy weather with temps more like early summer (about 68 degrees), but hey, we chose to live in Austin, didn't we?

Welcome Back

This morning, I rejoined the Gazelles for a little 7 mile run on the trail. There was a pretty big crowd, and we had a great time. Gilbert warned us to run easy, and believe me, we took his advice. Lots of conversation, both looking forward to the spring racing season and looking back at Freescale. I ended up running most of the way with Emily and Brian. It was a nice morning, clear and cool at about 60 degrees. Did 7 miles at almost exactly 9:00 pace, so it was a fun run. After spending so many mornings with these folks, it was like "Old Home Week" today, getting back in touch with my running pals. It was good to see Jan out there as well, returning to the fold after rehabbing her injured calf. Once we got done, we did some striders. I guess I did 6 x 100m striders, but I was talking with Sean, and I might have lost count in there somewhere. :-)

The stretching was entertaining as usual, and Shannon got the special Coach attention this morning, as he gave her the extended torture with the hamstring stretching. I laughed and told her that's what she gets now that she's officially a fast runner. We had many new faces there this morning for stretching, so I guess that means a new beginner's group has started.

Anyway, after some post-stretching talk with Richard, Alex and Frank, it was time to get going. All in all, it was a fine return to running with the gang. Monday, it's back to speedy stuff with the Meriden 1000's. I'll be there, but I'll stick with 3 or 4 repeats instead of 4-5, and I won't concern myself too much with pace just yet. It'll be form city instead.

For the week, about 18.5 miles running, 4 runs. Next week, I've got to get back to the gym for two workouts, and I'll stick with the 4 running days one more week, stretching out the mileage just a little bit more, up to maybe 25 miles.

Back In The Saddle

Tonight, I went out for the first back-to-back run since Freescale, a intentionally easy paced 30 minutes or so. I ended up going just over 32 minutes, 3.4 miles, 9:24 pace. Mission accomplished. Everything felt just great. The best part about tonight's run, though, was late in the run, when I was just enjoying the setting sun and the sound of my footfalls, and I came upon a neighbor that I've not met before, who was coming the other way. She looked at me and said, "You make that look so easy!" I thanked her for those kind words, and moved on, but that was really cool. I've spent most of my running life thinking I was a stodgy runner lacking in grace, and here a stranger told me that maybe I was wrong about myself. Or, maybe it's just all that form work with Gilbert that's showing. Whatever, it made my night. I'm looking forward to the relaxed 7 miler on Saturday!

Another Couple of Steps

This evening was another good little recovery run, as I continue the Road Back To Running. I seem to have shaken the post-marathon blues, and have recovered the urge and joy of this simple repetitive thing. It was lots warmer, maybe 80 degrees, but I've got to get back in the heat sooner or later, so why not?

4.6 miles, 8:46 pace, a little over 40 minutes. This pace just felt fine, but I'll be sure and run a little easier tomorrow on my first back-to-back runs since Freescale. I also need to get back in the gym. Now THAT I haven't recovered the joy for yet. :-)