Fast Running, 800 meters @ A Time
Today, it was sort of nice out there, just 70 degrees. The conditions made for a more pleasant tour of the Austin High track, that's for sure! A pretty small crew cruised over to the track from RunTex, including Rich, Shannon, Amy, Emily, and Jessica. Brad and Jan joined us after they ran over from Brad's house. Drills and then it was time to go. Rogue Training was there doing their 2 mile time trial on the track, so it was a little crowded at first, but it never bothered us while we were doing the workout.
Gilbert grouped us up (Rich and Shannon got to go with faster people, Brad joined us, and Jan ran with another group), and it was time to run. No goal times, except that Gilbert said we could take it a little easy today, 4 to 5 repeats of 800 meters. The last time I did this workout was way back in December, and we did 8 x 800m at an average of 3:26/800m, with a fast lap (for me) of 3:13.
We found a good pace on the first interval, and managed to slowly speed up over the course of the workout. Just 2 minutes rest between intervals was challenging, but by and large, this wasn't a max level of effort today. On the very last interval, I managed to roll to a tie for a personal best for an 800m repeat lap, which was nice to see.
The splits: 3:35, 3:34, 3:32, 3:30, 3:13. Average 3:29 / 7:00/mile pace. So, we were a little off our best performance at this workout, but it was still a good effort. Our "easier" pace was still pretty good, so it was another sign that our fitness is continuing to improve. Next Monday, the fall marathon group starts doing their thing, so those of us not doing a fall marathon will become a slightly different group of workout peeps. I think I'll follow the general path that I did last summer, doing their pace runs on Mondays, but just shortening them up a little (if they do 10 miles, with 5 easy and 5 hard miles, we can do 7 miles, 3 miles easy and 4 at pace...or similar iterations of the formula).
For the day, about 6.5 miles. For May, a new record for this month, at 131.7 miles, a 38 mile increase over last year. For the year so far, I'm 113 miles ahead of last year's totals, some 23 miles per month more than last year's average total. So far, so good.
I had to leave fairly quickly after we were done, to pick Sarah up from a sleepover, so I didn't get to stretch. Ugh.
Gymboree
After dropping Sarah off at home and assigning some chores to the kids, I dashed up to Gold's for the Wednesday gym visit. Today is the easier core workout (floor exercises as always, plus the back raises and oblique raises on the "rack.") plus the upper body workout. The core stuff worked out just fine, and then it was off to pump iron. Bicep curls are coming along. On bench press, I've backed off to 85 lbs on both sets of lifts, and I'll keep it that way until I can do 2 x 12 reps at that weight. I'm close, though. Dumbbell flies (those are tough after the bench press) and lat pulldowns went smoothly, as did tricep pulldowns. It's coming together piece by piece, and I don't feel like such an interloper any more. I feel like I belong, more or less.
Tomorrow, I'll run in the 'Hood so I can sleep in a little, and then it's core and leg weights at the gym. I feel pretty good, but I need to catch up on my sleep, that's for sure!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
EZ Running
The Tuesday Recovery Running Club reconvened this morning for our 7 mile loop. It was actually a couple of degrees cooler than over the weekend, but it was still humid enough that we were all pretty well drenched upon completion of our little cruise. We had a big crew today, with Frank, Jan, Brad, Amy, Emily, Brian and me. It was low stress easy running, and we had some fun. A couple of water stops added three minutes or so to the run, but even with the stops included, we averaged a respectable 9:38/mile for the loop. It felt good to me, that's for sure. The group morphed forward and back, and it seems like we all had a turn at the front and back of the pack, as well as conversational opportunities with pretty much everyone as we rolled along. We saw Shannon running the opposite way with her dog while we were out there, too.
Jan, Brad and I did 4 x 100m striders on the grass at Auditorium Shores, and my legs really felt good. I'm happy about that. Afterwards, there was chatting with lots of folks, including Alex, who had just finished his favorite workout of all the Gazelles library, Wilke. He was beaming. I don't think I look like that after Wilke. :-)
The running done, I put on a dry shirt and headed to the gym for the Tuesday workout.
GymStuff
I finished off my Powerade and a Clif Bar on the way to Gold's, and then got right into the day's exertions. This was the heavier core exercise day, with the dreaded Roman Chair stuff and the planks, as well as the floor exercises. I still haven't boosted up the reps and/or time of any of those, but it was still a challenging workout. It's coming back to me, though. The leg weights went very smoothly, and I think by next week I may add weight to a couple of the exercises there.
As an exercise doubleheader, this went very well today. Now, all I have to do is get psyched up for the Tempo Race/Run tomorrow morning...
The Tuesday Recovery Running Club reconvened this morning for our 7 mile loop. It was actually a couple of degrees cooler than over the weekend, but it was still humid enough that we were all pretty well drenched upon completion of our little cruise. We had a big crew today, with Frank, Jan, Brad, Amy, Emily, Brian and me. It was low stress easy running, and we had some fun. A couple of water stops added three minutes or so to the run, but even with the stops included, we averaged a respectable 9:38/mile for the loop. It felt good to me, that's for sure. The group morphed forward and back, and it seems like we all had a turn at the front and back of the pack, as well as conversational opportunities with pretty much everyone as we rolled along. We saw Shannon running the opposite way with her dog while we were out there, too.
Jan, Brad and I did 4 x 100m striders on the grass at Auditorium Shores, and my legs really felt good. I'm happy about that. Afterwards, there was chatting with lots of folks, including Alex, who had just finished his favorite workout of all the Gazelles library, Wilke. He was beaming. I don't think I look like that after Wilke. :-)
The running done, I put on a dry shirt and headed to the gym for the Tuesday workout.
GymStuff
I finished off my Powerade and a Clif Bar on the way to Gold's, and then got right into the day's exertions. This was the heavier core exercise day, with the dreaded Roman Chair stuff and the planks, as well as the floor exercises. I still haven't boosted up the reps and/or time of any of those, but it was still a challenging workout. It's coming back to me, though. The leg weights went very smoothly, and I think by next week I may add weight to a couple of the exercises there.
As an exercise doubleheader, this went very well today. Now, all I have to do is get psyched up for the Tempo Race/Run tomorrow morning...
Monday, May 29, 2006
Circuitry
Today was sort of an optional Memorial Day workout for the Gazelles. Gilbert had arranged for one large circuit workout for any interested parties, ranging from the 6:00 am group to the 5:30 pm group. We ended up with over 20 people. Of my peeps, we had Emily, Rich, Shannon and Colleen. Marcy and Anne were there from the faster groups, among others. It was warm and humid (go figure), so warming up wasn't a big problem. Due to the Cap-Tex Triathlon downtown this morning, we parked at Austin High School, and did our warmup back and forth on the trail. I figure we went about a mile and a half, maybe a little more. I felt good, so I was glad to see that last week's full schedule didn't leave me in bad shape. Drills, and then it was time to go. Gilbert assigned our group to run 800's between each set of circuit exercises, and to run them "a little faster than usual." Whatever that means. :-)
I paired up with Emily, since the other people were running a little quicker than us. We did the usual circuit exercises, stepups, fence knee bends or "superman" jumps, crunches or leg raises, pushups, back raises, and lunges. With the slightly faster running, I really never fully recovered during any portion of the workout, but I suppose that's the idea. After the third set, Gilbert gathered us for 2 rounds of "fast feet," combined with the "Iyo Ngwe" call and response that made it go faster. I was drenched upon completion of all of that, but it was a good kind of feeling.
Before we lost our will, most of us hit the trail for 10 minutes of cooldown running, somewhere over a mile. I clocked pretty consistent splits on the 800's, by the way, at 3:39, 3:43, and 3:44, around 7:27/mile average pace. For the day, 4.6 miles.
Once we were done, I walked over to the edge of the triathlon bike course so I could cheer on my friend Mike. I did my stretching while I was waiting, and it turned out to be a fun time yelling and clapping for all the triathletes as they went by multiple times. Claire joined me for the cheering, as she had a friend or two in the field, too. I saw Mike all four of his laps, and saw a good number of other people that I've met through the Gazelles as well (Bob Janiak, Jerry, Carrie, and some other faces that I couldn't quite place with all that cycling gear on them). We had some fun yelling for a guy that was all dressed up in Lance regalia, calling him "Lance." He got the joke the second time around, and was looking for us the last two times. It was fun and maybe even inspiring to watch those folks work their way around 40K of cycling, but with a 10K run to finish up the day, I didn't envy them that much. I guess one day I'll have to try a Tri, just to check it off the list, but that time isn't yet here. :-) Mike finished fourth in his age group, by the way, so that's a good day's work!
Today was sort of an optional Memorial Day workout for the Gazelles. Gilbert had arranged for one large circuit workout for any interested parties, ranging from the 6:00 am group to the 5:30 pm group. We ended up with over 20 people. Of my peeps, we had Emily, Rich, Shannon and Colleen. Marcy and Anne were there from the faster groups, among others. It was warm and humid (go figure), so warming up wasn't a big problem. Due to the Cap-Tex Triathlon downtown this morning, we parked at Austin High School, and did our warmup back and forth on the trail. I figure we went about a mile and a half, maybe a little more. I felt good, so I was glad to see that last week's full schedule didn't leave me in bad shape. Drills, and then it was time to go. Gilbert assigned our group to run 800's between each set of circuit exercises, and to run them "a little faster than usual." Whatever that means. :-)
I paired up with Emily, since the other people were running a little quicker than us. We did the usual circuit exercises, stepups, fence knee bends or "superman" jumps, crunches or leg raises, pushups, back raises, and lunges. With the slightly faster running, I really never fully recovered during any portion of the workout, but I suppose that's the idea. After the third set, Gilbert gathered us for 2 rounds of "fast feet," combined with the "Iyo Ngwe" call and response that made it go faster. I was drenched upon completion of all of that, but it was a good kind of feeling.
Before we lost our will, most of us hit the trail for 10 minutes of cooldown running, somewhere over a mile. I clocked pretty consistent splits on the 800's, by the way, at 3:39, 3:43, and 3:44, around 7:27/mile average pace. For the day, 4.6 miles.
Once we were done, I walked over to the edge of the triathlon bike course so I could cheer on my friend Mike. I did my stretching while I was waiting, and it turned out to be a fun time yelling and clapping for all the triathletes as they went by multiple times. Claire joined me for the cheering, as she had a friend or two in the field, too. I saw Mike all four of his laps, and saw a good number of other people that I've met through the Gazelles as well (Bob Janiak, Jerry, Carrie, and some other faces that I couldn't quite place with all that cycling gear on them). We had some fun yelling for a guy that was all dressed up in Lance regalia, calling him "Lance." He got the joke the second time around, and was looking for us the last two times. It was fun and maybe even inspiring to watch those folks work their way around 40K of cycling, but with a 10K run to finish up the day, I didn't envy them that much. I guess one day I'll have to try a Tri, just to check it off the list, but that time isn't yet here. :-) Mike finished fourth in his age group, by the way, so that's a good day's work!
Saturday, May 27, 2006
No Need For Warmup
This morning, the old car thermometer read 77 degrees as I arrived at RunTex before 6:00 am. Not a good sign. But, we're slowly getting accustomed to the heat, so I guess it would be okay. It was pretty muggy, too, but that's nothing new here in Austin. A big group of runners was there to embark on a longish run, and Gilbert gave us the Scenic route as the course d'jour. He really wanted everyone to do Mt. Bonnell, but we weren't too keen on that. The fall marathon group will crank things up in a week or so, and I guess they were taking it relatively easy until they had to crank it up. Off we went, though.
My group was Rich, Brad, Jan, Shannon, Emily, Brian and Leslie. Frank, Liliana and Alex ran ahead at their elevated pace. Our crew cruised along pretty efficiently all day. Emily had some time issues, and cut the run a little short, leaving us at the boat docks. Once the rest of us got to the first water stop at the dry cleaners, Shannon, Brian and Rich decided that they wouldn't do Bonnell after all, so we'd be a gang all the way to the finish. We sort of took turns leading the way, so the pace varied to suit the person(s) in front. That was okay with everyone, I think. I took a GU at the dry cleaners, and after we had tanked up with water, we were off for the second half of the run. The hilly Scenic portion of the route was challenging as always, but we took it a little slower ( just slightly) than normal. Up 35th, and then down Exposition, we dealt with the remaining hills, and eased into the O. Henry Powerade stop in pretty good shape.
I had not intended to do any sort of "fast finish," but leaving O. Henry, I just hung out near the front of the pack and waited to see how I felt. We stayed pretty much together until Mopac, and at that point, Brian needed another quick drink of water. Rich stayed with him for a bit, but the rest of us went on. Just as we crossed the bridge, Rich came up behind us and blasted in front. Shannon quickly joined him, and they were off. I waited for a bit, but finally decided I could and should pick it up a little going home, and followed those two. The rest of the troops stuck to their pace, which was plenty quick, but I figured it was time to push it. Rich was long gone, but it seemed that I was slowly catching up to Shannon, so I was encouraged to keep going. Turns out, she had had a little too much fun last night, and was feeling the effects of that late in the run. That's about the only way I would be able to stay with her, that's for sure! Anyway, we ran together for a half mile or so, and finally I pulled away a little over the last half mile of the day, and finished up in pretty good fashion. My last couple of miles were 9:01, 8:25, and 8:00, so that was a decent fast finish.
Everyone else rolled in soon after that, so we all had pretty good days on a warm weather day. Brad's nifty new Garmin with the new and improved GPS capabilities gave us a mileage figure of 11.45 miles, so I'll take that. Mine read 11.6, but that was surely a little long. I scored a running time of 1:44:03, for a running pace of 9:05/mile. With the two fairly lengthy water stops, the full day's running pace devolved to 9:45/mile.
Most of us knocked out 4 striders on the trail, and called it a day. We were uniformly drenched upon completion of the day's exertions. Shades of things to come, I'd say.
Full stretching routine was entertaining, and then Jan, Brad, Alex and I ventured over to Deep Eddy for a nice cold water soak for our overheated running machines. That was awesomely good! I felt great once we finished 20 minutes in the chilly waters, and that ended a good running day.
For the week, I scored about 34 miles, so I'm almost up to my planned summer average mileage. I've still got some room to ease the recovery runs up to their usual 7 miles, and that will take me up to the 35-40 mile range. After a full week of completed workouts, including the gym, I feel pretty good. Tomorrow's full day off will be wonderful, though. I suppose I should at least do some core stuff at home tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes.
This morning, the old car thermometer read 77 degrees as I arrived at RunTex before 6:00 am. Not a good sign. But, we're slowly getting accustomed to the heat, so I guess it would be okay. It was pretty muggy, too, but that's nothing new here in Austin. A big group of runners was there to embark on a longish run, and Gilbert gave us the Scenic route as the course d'jour. He really wanted everyone to do Mt. Bonnell, but we weren't too keen on that. The fall marathon group will crank things up in a week or so, and I guess they were taking it relatively easy until they had to crank it up. Off we went, though.
My group was Rich, Brad, Jan, Shannon, Emily, Brian and Leslie. Frank, Liliana and Alex ran ahead at their elevated pace. Our crew cruised along pretty efficiently all day. Emily had some time issues, and cut the run a little short, leaving us at the boat docks. Once the rest of us got to the first water stop at the dry cleaners, Shannon, Brian and Rich decided that they wouldn't do Bonnell after all, so we'd be a gang all the way to the finish. We sort of took turns leading the way, so the pace varied to suit the person(s) in front. That was okay with everyone, I think. I took a GU at the dry cleaners, and after we had tanked up with water, we were off for the second half of the run. The hilly Scenic portion of the route was challenging as always, but we took it a little slower ( just slightly) than normal. Up 35th, and then down Exposition, we dealt with the remaining hills, and eased into the O. Henry Powerade stop in pretty good shape.
I had not intended to do any sort of "fast finish," but leaving O. Henry, I just hung out near the front of the pack and waited to see how I felt. We stayed pretty much together until Mopac, and at that point, Brian needed another quick drink of water. Rich stayed with him for a bit, but the rest of us went on. Just as we crossed the bridge, Rich came up behind us and blasted in front. Shannon quickly joined him, and they were off. I waited for a bit, but finally decided I could and should pick it up a little going home, and followed those two. The rest of the troops stuck to their pace, which was plenty quick, but I figured it was time to push it. Rich was long gone, but it seemed that I was slowly catching up to Shannon, so I was encouraged to keep going. Turns out, she had had a little too much fun last night, and was feeling the effects of that late in the run. That's about the only way I would be able to stay with her, that's for sure! Anyway, we ran together for a half mile or so, and finally I pulled away a little over the last half mile of the day, and finished up in pretty good fashion. My last couple of miles were 9:01, 8:25, and 8:00, so that was a decent fast finish.
Everyone else rolled in soon after that, so we all had pretty good days on a warm weather day. Brad's nifty new Garmin with the new and improved GPS capabilities gave us a mileage figure of 11.45 miles, so I'll take that. Mine read 11.6, but that was surely a little long. I scored a running time of 1:44:03, for a running pace of 9:05/mile. With the two fairly lengthy water stops, the full day's running pace devolved to 9:45/mile.
Most of us knocked out 4 striders on the trail, and called it a day. We were uniformly drenched upon completion of the day's exertions. Shades of things to come, I'd say.
Full stretching routine was entertaining, and then Jan, Brad, Alex and I ventured over to Deep Eddy for a nice cold water soak for our overheated running machines. That was awesomely good! I felt great once we finished 20 minutes in the chilly waters, and that ended a good running day.
For the week, I scored about 34 miles, so I'm almost up to my planned summer average mileage. I've still got some room to ease the recovery runs up to their usual 7 miles, and that will take me up to the 35-40 mile range. After a full week of completed workouts, including the gym, I feel pretty good. Tomorrow's full day off will be wonderful, though. I suppose I should at least do some core stuff at home tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Gymnasium Doin's
The end of the gym visits for the week came and went today. I went up to Gold's and started with a super easy 8 minutes on the cycle just to spin the legs for a while. After that, I did the floor exercises and back/oblique stuff on the "rack." Those are getting easier, which is a good sign. The upper body stuff started well, with a full couple of sets on the bicep curls. On bench, however, I think I just ran out of gas, and after a good first set at only 85 lbs, I just was able to do a handful of reps at 95 lbs. That will get better. Today just wasn't a bench day, I guess. Dumbbell incline press was next, and I wobbled those up for two complete sets. Seated rows were surprisingly okay, and then I finished things off with the tricep pulldowns. I'm still away from where I was before Freescale, but it's coming back. I ended up with that pleasant muscle burn that the gym usually delivers, and headed out for the rest of this easy day. The kids are out of school, so we'll do some stuff and have some fun.
Tomorrow is probably my favorite road running route in town, the Scenic loop. The Mt. Bonnell route is basically this route with the addition of the mountain assault, so Bonnell is certainly on my list of favorite routes, too. No Bonnell tomorrow, though. Scenic is 11-12 miles of rolling hills. I will not be going for a "fast finish" to the run (I'll start that back in June), but it should still be fun to cruise around town with the gang.
The end of the gym visits for the week came and went today. I went up to Gold's and started with a super easy 8 minutes on the cycle just to spin the legs for a while. After that, I did the floor exercises and back/oblique stuff on the "rack." Those are getting easier, which is a good sign. The upper body stuff started well, with a full couple of sets on the bicep curls. On bench, however, I think I just ran out of gas, and after a good first set at only 85 lbs, I just was able to do a handful of reps at 95 lbs. That will get better. Today just wasn't a bench day, I guess. Dumbbell incline press was next, and I wobbled those up for two complete sets. Seated rows were surprisingly okay, and then I finished things off with the tricep pulldowns. I'm still away from where I was before Freescale, but it's coming back. I ended up with that pleasant muscle burn that the gym usually delivers, and headed out for the rest of this easy day. The kids are out of school, so we'll do some stuff and have some fun.
Tomorrow is probably my favorite road running route in town, the Scenic loop. The Mt. Bonnell route is basically this route with the addition of the mountain assault, so Bonnell is certainly on my list of favorite routes, too. No Bonnell tomorrow, though. Scenic is 11-12 miles of rolling hills. I will not be going for a "fast finish" to the run (I'll start that back in June), but it should still be fun to cruise around town with the gang.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Recovery Running In A Summer Swelter
The birds didn't fly off to a fallout shelter, but it was warm out there tonight, even at 8:00 pm. I got out there for the recovery run, though, and it went just fine. Despite the temps still in the mid to high 80's, without the sun beaming down it was sort of okay to run in it. I ran on the streets of the 'Hood, and just tried to run nice and easy. Turned out a little quicker than I had thought, but still it was the right kind of running. Ended up with 4.8 miles at just about 9:00/mile pace, and it felt comfortable again.
Tomorrow is just a gym visit for core and upper body, so that will seem like a vacation day by comparison with the first four days of this week. :-)
And bonus points if you got the lyrical reference in the title and first line of this post...
The birds didn't fly off to a fallout shelter, but it was warm out there tonight, even at 8:00 pm. I got out there for the recovery run, though, and it went just fine. Despite the temps still in the mid to high 80's, without the sun beaming down it was sort of okay to run in it. I ran on the streets of the 'Hood, and just tried to run nice and easy. Turned out a little quicker than I had thought, but still it was the right kind of running. Ended up with 4.8 miles at just about 9:00/mile pace, and it felt comfortable again.
Tomorrow is just a gym visit for core and upper body, so that will seem like a vacation day by comparison with the first four days of this week. :-)
And bonus points if you got the lyrical reference in the title and first line of this post...
GymTastical Stuff
Wednesday, and another gym visit for my second round of leg weights (and Core stuff). I started with some stretching, because I was feeling fairly stiff today. Then, it was on to exercise. Well, okay, there was this one distraction... There were two young ladies stretching, working out, and/or talking on their phones in the floor exercise area, but I did indeed get onto my routine. It was really sort of funny to watch the male "watchers" check the two women out over and over. I'm still not sure if they were really doing anything other than hanging out and chatting together while wearing their workout gear (the girls, not the guys). Okay, enough of the ancillary stuff...
At any rate, that core stuff was more difficult today! I bumped everything up to two sets, but there was some significant soreness to work out. It's coming back, but I can tell that I'm still catching up with former levels of core fitness. Leg weights were pretty close to where I was when I was more of a regular to the gym, but that's to be expected, since I have been running, of course. It was a productive workout. I'll get out tonight for my recovery run, and that makes for a great exercise week so far. Judging from how I feel today, though, I bet my upper body is going to be angry with me by tomorrow. Should be interesting...
Wednesday, and another gym visit for my second round of leg weights (and Core stuff). I started with some stretching, because I was feeling fairly stiff today. Then, it was on to exercise. Well, okay, there was this one distraction... There were two young ladies stretching, working out, and/or talking on their phones in the floor exercise area, but I did indeed get onto my routine. It was really sort of funny to watch the male "watchers" check the two women out over and over. I'm still not sure if they were really doing anything other than hanging out and chatting together while wearing their workout gear (the girls, not the guys). Okay, enough of the ancillary stuff...
At any rate, that core stuff was more difficult today! I bumped everything up to two sets, but there was some significant soreness to work out. It's coming back, but I can tell that I'm still catching up with former levels of core fitness. Leg weights were pretty close to where I was when I was more of a regular to the gym, but that's to be expected, since I have been running, of course. It was a productive workout. I'll get out tonight for my recovery run, and that makes for a great exercise week so far. Judging from how I feel today, though, I bet my upper body is going to be angry with me by tomorrow. Should be interesting...
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
400's, New Pace
This morning, I had to alter the routine a bit, since I had to drop Sarah off at school early for their band trip today. I didn't have quite enough time to get all the way to RunTex for the warmup, so I went directly to the track, and ran back along the track until I met up with the gang coming towards me. Turns out, Brad and Jan had left from Brad's house, so they were ahead of the main pack, but it was still fun to run back along with them to Austin High School. The rest of the troops arrived pretty quickly, and after drills we were ready to go. Gilbert officially split up my group, and left me with Rachel, Amy, Emily, Jessica, Brad and Richard, a still sizeable group (in numbers only, now! No jokes about our relative size!). Richard and Amy weren't here this morning, though. He also assigned us pace ranges, as I suppose he's grown weary of waiting on us to crank up things quicker. Alex will appreciate my happiness now that we get to report our times as seconds only (e.g. "96-98" instead of "1:36 - 1:38"). Rachel decided it must be because we are no longer in the three digit range. Whatever the case, that was what we set out to do.
It was muggy and warm out there, but by now, we're growing accustomed to it. C'est la vie. I led the first couple of laps, and then we started taking turns leading the way. That helped a lot, because for whatever reason, it's a little easier to follow someone around the track than to make the pace yourself. Psychological? Jessica was the only one who stayed with it for the last 2 repeats, and she was a big help making the pace go. The others had had enough after 10. I don't really blame them. Gilbert told us we could stop after 10, but I still felt good, so he let Jessica and me finish the dozen originally assigned repeats.
It wasn't terribly different staying within the new pace zone, but I suppose it just eliminated the normal first couple of repeats that end up in the 1:40-1:41 range usually, and dropped us right to work instead. Gee, Coach knows what he's doing, huh? :-)
Splits: 1:37, 1:37, 1:36, 1:36, 1:35, 1:37, 1:38, 1:38, 1:34, 1:35, 1:32, 1:29. Avg. lap 1:35, which is a new record by a couple of seconds. Last lap is not a PB, but it's close. All in all, I'm pleased with the workout. This is the sort of thing I need to be doing, pressing during the summer to build strength and speed and deemphasizing endurance so much. So far, so good.
I ran back halfway with Rachel, Emily, and Jessica, and then turned around to go back to my car at AHS. It was sort of strange not finishing up with everyone else, but that's the way it goes, I guess. I did the stretching routine once I got back to the track, and that was the end of a good workout. About 6.2 miles total. With this run, I exceeded last year's May 2005 running totals, so that's pretty cool.
Gymtastical Stuff, too
After that, I was off to the gym to do the second half of the gym workout from yesterday. I gobbled down a Clif Bar with my Endurox, and was ready to go. I did the floor exercises for core stuff, this time doing two sets as usual. The first set showed me that I was a little sore from yesterday, but that soon worked itself out. I also did the back exercises and oblique raises with weights on the "rack," just a single set of everything. Then, I moved on to do upper body. I figured I'd definitely see a retreat in my ability to handle those exercises, and I was right. I wasn't the Incredible Hulk or anything, but I had built up to certain weights and reps that made me feel pretty good. It's a drag to have to retrace the steps to getting back to those levels, but that's my fault. Anyway, bicep curls, bench, dumbbell flies, lat pulldowns and tricep pulldowns all were lower weight than before, and in some cases dramatically lower reps (bench). Still, I did two sets on everything, and I was pretty satisfied with how the workout went. Hopefully, I'll move back up fairly quickly.
Now, if I do the Thursday recovery run and visit the gym tomorrow, I have a chance to nail the entire weekly schedule. Sounds easy enough, but I still have to do it.
This morning, I had to alter the routine a bit, since I had to drop Sarah off at school early for their band trip today. I didn't have quite enough time to get all the way to RunTex for the warmup, so I went directly to the track, and ran back along the track until I met up with the gang coming towards me. Turns out, Brad and Jan had left from Brad's house, so they were ahead of the main pack, but it was still fun to run back along with them to Austin High School. The rest of the troops arrived pretty quickly, and after drills we were ready to go. Gilbert officially split up my group, and left me with Rachel, Amy, Emily, Jessica, Brad and Richard, a still sizeable group (in numbers only, now! No jokes about our relative size!). Richard and Amy weren't here this morning, though. He also assigned us pace ranges, as I suppose he's grown weary of waiting on us to crank up things quicker. Alex will appreciate my happiness now that we get to report our times as seconds only (e.g. "96-98" instead of "1:36 - 1:38"). Rachel decided it must be because we are no longer in the three digit range. Whatever the case, that was what we set out to do.
It was muggy and warm out there, but by now, we're growing accustomed to it. C'est la vie. I led the first couple of laps, and then we started taking turns leading the way. That helped a lot, because for whatever reason, it's a little easier to follow someone around the track than to make the pace yourself. Psychological? Jessica was the only one who stayed with it for the last 2 repeats, and she was a big help making the pace go. The others had had enough after 10. I don't really blame them. Gilbert told us we could stop after 10, but I still felt good, so he let Jessica and me finish the dozen originally assigned repeats.
It wasn't terribly different staying within the new pace zone, but I suppose it just eliminated the normal first couple of repeats that end up in the 1:40-1:41 range usually, and dropped us right to work instead. Gee, Coach knows what he's doing, huh? :-)
Splits: 1:37, 1:37, 1:36, 1:36, 1:35, 1:37, 1:38, 1:38, 1:34, 1:35, 1:32, 1:29. Avg. lap 1:35, which is a new record by a couple of seconds. Last lap is not a PB, but it's close. All in all, I'm pleased with the workout. This is the sort of thing I need to be doing, pressing during the summer to build strength and speed and deemphasizing endurance so much. So far, so good.
I ran back halfway with Rachel, Emily, and Jessica, and then turned around to go back to my car at AHS. It was sort of strange not finishing up with everyone else, but that's the way it goes, I guess. I did the stretching routine once I got back to the track, and that was the end of a good workout. About 6.2 miles total. With this run, I exceeded last year's May 2005 running totals, so that's pretty cool.
Gymtastical Stuff, too
After that, I was off to the gym to do the second half of the gym workout from yesterday. I gobbled down a Clif Bar with my Endurox, and was ready to go. I did the floor exercises for core stuff, this time doing two sets as usual. The first set showed me that I was a little sore from yesterday, but that soon worked itself out. I also did the back exercises and oblique raises with weights on the "rack," just a single set of everything. Then, I moved on to do upper body. I figured I'd definitely see a retreat in my ability to handle those exercises, and I was right. I wasn't the Incredible Hulk or anything, but I had built up to certain weights and reps that made me feel pretty good. It's a drag to have to retrace the steps to getting back to those levels, but that's my fault. Anyway, bicep curls, bench, dumbbell flies, lat pulldowns and tricep pulldowns all were lower weight than before, and in some cases dramatically lower reps (bench). Still, I did two sets on everything, and I was pretty satisfied with how the workout went. Hopefully, I'll move back up fairly quickly.
Now, if I do the Thursday recovery run and visit the gym tomorrow, I have a chance to nail the entire weekly schedule. Sounds easy enough, but I still have to do it.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Recovery Running
Hip, hip, hooray! For the first time in quite a while, I've done the first two days of the full Gazelles schedule. It's about time. Tonight, at dusk, I went out for a nice little recovery run, easy going. I planned to go about 30 minutes, but ended up with 38 minutes and right at 4 miles. Average pace a comfortable 9:22/mile. It was pretty warm out there, but there was enough of a breeze that, with the setting sun, it wasn't too awful. I ran mostly on the water tower trail with the front and back end of the run on 'hood streets.
This was plenty of distance for now. I'll slowly build this run and the Thursday runs up to 7 miles over the next month. No hurry on that.
Hip, hip, hooray! For the first time in quite a while, I've done the first two days of the full Gazelles schedule. It's about time. Tonight, at dusk, I went out for a nice little recovery run, easy going. I planned to go about 30 minutes, but ended up with 38 minutes and right at 4 miles. Average pace a comfortable 9:22/mile. It was pretty warm out there, but there was enough of a breeze that, with the setting sun, it wasn't too awful. I ran mostly on the water tower trail with the front and back end of the run on 'hood streets.
This was plenty of distance for now. I'll slowly build this run and the Thursday runs up to 7 miles over the next month. No hurry on that.
Finally, GymStuff...
I finally wrestled myself to the gym today, and hopefully, I'll stay on the program from here on. I did core stuff and then leg weights today. With the leg stuff, I did full sets of everything, but slightly reduced weight on some of them, as I find my way back into the swing of things there. For the core stuff, I did single sets of some of the exercises, and I had to reduce the time on each plank exercise, but I did do two sets of the planks. All in all, I'll give it a "B." Tomorrow, it's upper body, where I'm sure I'll find the most decline in ability, and I'll also do the core exercises I skipped today (the back raises and oblique raises) as well as the floor exercises. It'll be interesting to see how much, if any, these leg exercises impact my ability to do the 400's tomorrow morning. The gym was packed, by the way. Except for a holdup at the standing calf raise machine, though, I didn't have any trouble getting through my workout.
Oh, I mentioned "Baby, It's You" on the Saturday long run report. Turns out, the original was by The Shirelles. The version I was thinking of was a cover done in 1969 by a group called "Smith," which is the best version of the tune. It's worth checking out.
I finally wrestled myself to the gym today, and hopefully, I'll stay on the program from here on. I did core stuff and then leg weights today. With the leg stuff, I did full sets of everything, but slightly reduced weight on some of them, as I find my way back into the swing of things there. For the core stuff, I did single sets of some of the exercises, and I had to reduce the time on each plank exercise, but I did do two sets of the planks. All in all, I'll give it a "B." Tomorrow, it's upper body, where I'm sure I'll find the most decline in ability, and I'll also do the core exercises I skipped today (the back raises and oblique raises) as well as the floor exercises. It'll be interesting to see how much, if any, these leg exercises impact my ability to do the 400's tomorrow morning. The gym was packed, by the way. Except for a holdup at the standing calf raise machine, though, I didn't have any trouble getting through my workout.
Oh, I mentioned "Baby, It's You" on the Saturday long run report. Turns out, the original was by The Shirelles. The version I was thinking of was a cover done in 1969 by a group called "Smith," which is the best version of the tune. It's worth checking out.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Mile Repeats, Repeated
Our spate of cooler mornings ended abruptly this morning, and we had humid, 75 degree conditions with which to contend for our mile repeat session. Before we left RunTex, Gilbert spent some time outlining what was coming up in training, and told us that the "Jay Group" would be broken up for the 400m repeats coming up on Wednesday. Anyway, it was off to Zilker for the rolling mile repeats. This has always seemed to be more about strength than speed, but we certainly time them.
Richard, Rachel and Shannon weren't there this morning, due to travel (Richard and Rachel) or Sunday trail race (Shannon), but the remainder of our crew was there for the fun today. Warmup run and drills accomplished, we were ready to go. The crowd was quite resistant to getting going on the drills, though. There was a whole lot of personal inertia working to keep up from zipping through the drills. Gilbert announced that 3 or 4 repeats would be plenty for us. We chose to hear that as "3, maybe 4."
Brian and Rich got promoted to Frank's group today (along with Shannon), so my usual group is now a smaller one, with Amy, Emily (Rachel, Richard) being the gang. The three of us took off after Frank's peeps, and rolled through the first, counterclockwise, repeat in a relaxed 7:19. After a quick 2 minute's rest, we went clockwise, and Emily and I counted the second mile in 7:00. I felt tired, but another 2 minutes, and we were off on the final mile. Gilbert told us as we finished interval number 2 that we were to do 3 repeats. Amy backed off on the last interval, having done the one mile open water swim at Lake Travis yesterday, and Emily likewise decided to choose her own pace, so I took off, trying to close the gap between us and Frank's group. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, but they were still faster on lap 3. I came in at 6:52 on the last lap, which was a mile repeat personal best for me. The 7:03/mile average was another PB, although with an asterisk, since we only did 3 x 1 mile today. I probably could have done 4 repeats if we had had to, but I'm glad he took it easy on us all the same.
We regrouped with Powerade and water, and it was time to head back. I ran back with Emily, and we caught Amy about halfway back. We were all relieved that the workout was over, and it was good to get back to RunTex. I did most of the full stretching regimen there, and then had to head up to the middle school for the 7th grade awards ceremony. I did clean up a bit and put on fresh clothes before strolling into the gym there. :-)
For the day, 6.9 miles. My goal for Tuesday is to just do the scheduled workouts, an easy recovery run of 45-50 minutes and a visit to the gym.
Our spate of cooler mornings ended abruptly this morning, and we had humid, 75 degree conditions with which to contend for our mile repeat session. Before we left RunTex, Gilbert spent some time outlining what was coming up in training, and told us that the "Jay Group" would be broken up for the 400m repeats coming up on Wednesday. Anyway, it was off to Zilker for the rolling mile repeats. This has always seemed to be more about strength than speed, but we certainly time them.
Richard, Rachel and Shannon weren't there this morning, due to travel (Richard and Rachel) or Sunday trail race (Shannon), but the remainder of our crew was there for the fun today. Warmup run and drills accomplished, we were ready to go. The crowd was quite resistant to getting going on the drills, though. There was a whole lot of personal inertia working to keep up from zipping through the drills. Gilbert announced that 3 or 4 repeats would be plenty for us. We chose to hear that as "3, maybe 4."
Brian and Rich got promoted to Frank's group today (along with Shannon), so my usual group is now a smaller one, with Amy, Emily (Rachel, Richard) being the gang. The three of us took off after Frank's peeps, and rolled through the first, counterclockwise, repeat in a relaxed 7:19. After a quick 2 minute's rest, we went clockwise, and Emily and I counted the second mile in 7:00. I felt tired, but another 2 minutes, and we were off on the final mile. Gilbert told us as we finished interval number 2 that we were to do 3 repeats. Amy backed off on the last interval, having done the one mile open water swim at Lake Travis yesterday, and Emily likewise decided to choose her own pace, so I took off, trying to close the gap between us and Frank's group. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, but they were still faster on lap 3. I came in at 6:52 on the last lap, which was a mile repeat personal best for me. The 7:03/mile average was another PB, although with an asterisk, since we only did 3 x 1 mile today. I probably could have done 4 repeats if we had had to, but I'm glad he took it easy on us all the same.
We regrouped with Powerade and water, and it was time to head back. I ran back with Emily, and we caught Amy about halfway back. We were all relieved that the workout was over, and it was good to get back to RunTex. I did most of the full stretching regimen there, and then had to head up to the middle school for the 7th grade awards ceremony. I did clean up a bit and put on fresh clothes before strolling into the gym there. :-)
For the day, 6.9 miles. My goal for Tuesday is to just do the scheduled workouts, an easy recovery run of 45-50 minutes and a visit to the gym.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Long Running
This morning, on a relatively cool day, a small group of us took off for a 10 mile journey. Rachel, Emily, and Jan joined me in our little pack. Alex and Liliana ran off with the faster peeps ahead of us. We did the Grove loop, cutting it slightly short by turning off the trail at the First Street bridge. It was a very relaxing run, and it was fun to have Jan join us again after her running "vacation." That extension of the trail past Pleasant Valley is nice, and it was a relief to be running in such a quiet and tranquil place. We took a couple of water stops and still ended up with a nice final pace. I clocked 10.3 miles running all the way back to RunTex. It was right about 10.1 stopping at the Auditorium Shores water jugs. Final overall pace was 8:54/mile, and with water stop time, it drifted to 9:14/mile. Not bad for what felt like a pretty comfortable run!
The song stuck in my head this morning was "Baby, It's You," which I think was originally done by Dusty Springfield. The version I heard on my internal radio station was the cover by The Beatles. It's a great tune and all, but I just couldn't shake it out of my brain for the whole 10 miles. Sometimes I need to have a forceful talk with the DJ at KJAY FM. :-)
No striders today, as I had to hurry and join the stretching group. Most Gazelles were doing the Congress Avenue Mile today, so it was a small crew stretching away. It was fun to chat with Pete, getting caught up with him. It's the first time I've seen him since he finished third overall at the OK City Marathon a few weeks ago.
After we got done, we moseyed over to the Congress Avenue bridge to cheer on our fellow Gazelles. We walked over with Volel, and it was good to see him again. Amy ran in the 9:15 am heat, and afterwards swore that she'd never do that again. (She ran great, by the way). The 9:30 am heat featured most of our peeps, including Erine, Rich, Patrick, Frank, Brian and others. They all ran terrific races, finishing well under 6:00, and all of them said it was one of the hardest races they've ever run. None of them heard us screaming for them in the home stretch, due to tunnel vision and other sensory short-circuits.
After catching up with them and offering congratulations, it was time to call it a day. Big fun, and all I have to do now is finish my "cross-training" by completing the yard mowing that I started yesterday. :-)
For the week, back up to 31 miles, so I'm almost back on the Program. I hope to add the Tuesday recovery run next week, as well as the gym workouts. This greatly reduced May schedule has been fun and all, but it's time to get back to business. Summer is strength training season for me, building up the body for the start of Freescale/Austin Marathon training in September. Long runs in the 10-13 mile range, with an occasional visit to 15 miles, and it'll be time to push harder on the speedwork with slightly fewer reps than the fall marathoners.
This morning, on a relatively cool day, a small group of us took off for a 10 mile journey. Rachel, Emily, and Jan joined me in our little pack. Alex and Liliana ran off with the faster peeps ahead of us. We did the Grove loop, cutting it slightly short by turning off the trail at the First Street bridge. It was a very relaxing run, and it was fun to have Jan join us again after her running "vacation." That extension of the trail past Pleasant Valley is nice, and it was a relief to be running in such a quiet and tranquil place. We took a couple of water stops and still ended up with a nice final pace. I clocked 10.3 miles running all the way back to RunTex. It was right about 10.1 stopping at the Auditorium Shores water jugs. Final overall pace was 8:54/mile, and with water stop time, it drifted to 9:14/mile. Not bad for what felt like a pretty comfortable run!
The song stuck in my head this morning was "Baby, It's You," which I think was originally done by Dusty Springfield. The version I heard on my internal radio station was the cover by The Beatles. It's a great tune and all, but I just couldn't shake it out of my brain for the whole 10 miles. Sometimes I need to have a forceful talk with the DJ at KJAY FM. :-)
No striders today, as I had to hurry and join the stretching group. Most Gazelles were doing the Congress Avenue Mile today, so it was a small crew stretching away. It was fun to chat with Pete, getting caught up with him. It's the first time I've seen him since he finished third overall at the OK City Marathon a few weeks ago.
After we got done, we moseyed over to the Congress Avenue bridge to cheer on our fellow Gazelles. We walked over with Volel, and it was good to see him again. Amy ran in the 9:15 am heat, and afterwards swore that she'd never do that again. (She ran great, by the way). The 9:30 am heat featured most of our peeps, including Erine, Rich, Patrick, Frank, Brian and others. They all ran terrific races, finishing well under 6:00, and all of them said it was one of the hardest races they've ever run. None of them heard us screaming for them in the home stretch, due to tunnel vision and other sensory short-circuits.
After catching up with them and offering congratulations, it was time to call it a day. Big fun, and all I have to do now is finish my "cross-training" by completing the yard mowing that I started yesterday. :-)
For the week, back up to 31 miles, so I'm almost back on the Program. I hope to add the Tuesday recovery run next week, as well as the gym workouts. This greatly reduced May schedule has been fun and all, but it's time to get back to business. Summer is strength training season for me, building up the body for the start of Freescale/Austin Marathon training in September. Long runs in the 10-13 mile range, with an occasional visit to 15 miles, and it'll be time to push harder on the speedwork with slightly fewer reps than the fall marathoners.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A Recovery Run - Finally!
This evening, I set out at dusk for a planned 45 minute easy recovery run. I've had a hard time getting back to these runs for a few weeks now, so this was mostly an exercise in getting myself out the door. I ran in the 'Hood, along with a final bit on the water tower trail. I started out with a mile around 10:00/mile pace, dropped it down to the low 9:00 range for a while, and I guess I picked it up late. Overall pace for 5.4 miles was 9:15/mile, and it felt pretty easy. My legs felt better after the workout than before, so mission accomplished.
Now, if I could just get myself to the gym tomorrow to start reestablishing that habit!
This evening, I set out at dusk for a planned 45 minute easy recovery run. I've had a hard time getting back to these runs for a few weeks now, so this was mostly an exercise in getting myself out the door. I ran in the 'Hood, along with a final bit on the water tower trail. I started out with a mile around 10:00/mile pace, dropped it down to the low 9:00 range for a while, and I guess I picked it up late. Overall pace for 5.4 miles was 9:15/mile, and it felt pretty easy. My legs felt better after the workout than before, so mission accomplished.
Now, if I could just get myself to the gym tomorrow to start reestablishing that habit!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Track 1000's [Entered 5/18/06]
Ah, yes, more track work! It was some good running weather today, with temps unexpectedly dropping into the high 50's. A big gang of runners joined today for our 2 1/2 lap adventures at Austin High. Something about doing 1000's on the track makes them seem lots harder than doing them at Zilker in a single loop, but I know it's the same distance.
Drills and such complete, it was time to get going. There were a bunch of other groups there this morning, but we didn't have much trouble doing our thing. My group was Jessica, Amy, Rachel, Emily and me. Rich, Brian and Shannon went on ahead, which was okay with me. I'm still sort of taking it easy (such as it is) on speedwork this week...or at least that's what my plan was.
Gilbert didn't really give us a time goal, except to say 10K pace. "10K pace" means something other than your current 10K pace, however. I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to be, but we decided to shoot for 4:30 for 1000m, or 7:10/mile pace. First repeat was almost perfect, and as we trotted the 200m recovery, we thought we were getting the 3:00 minute rest that we had last time we did this workout. Au, contraire! We got the 200m jog recovery and then we had to get going immediately. Well, this would be different! The recoveries were more like 1:40-1:45 for us today, making this quite a different workout.
The next two repeats were a little quicker, but still in that normal range for us. Gilbert noticed that we were enjoying things a little much, though, and yelled at us to go faster. Okay. That kicked up our pace for the last two repeats considerably, and I think the last repeat was a personal best for this workout.
Splits: 4:31, 4:26, 4:27, 4:19, 4:11. Overall repeat pace 4:22, or 7:03/mile pace. That's some 5 seconds faster per repeat than last time we did this workout in December, and 7 seconds/mile faster average pace! Of course, this means that next time, we have to start out quicker, but that's the idea, I think.
I did 3x200m striders after that on the track, with exaggerated form, and at times, I almost felt like I had the whole running form thing down. As soon as I thought about it, it went away, but for just a moment there...
I ran back to RunTex alone after I stopped for a bit to talk with Mac Allen, another ex-Galloway person. That cooldown run was quicker than usual, as a result, but still enjoyable.
Full stretching again once I got back, and another running day in the books. Total miles today 7.8.
Ah, yes, more track work! It was some good running weather today, with temps unexpectedly dropping into the high 50's. A big gang of runners joined today for our 2 1/2 lap adventures at Austin High. Something about doing 1000's on the track makes them seem lots harder than doing them at Zilker in a single loop, but I know it's the same distance.
Drills and such complete, it was time to get going. There were a bunch of other groups there this morning, but we didn't have much trouble doing our thing. My group was Jessica, Amy, Rachel, Emily and me. Rich, Brian and Shannon went on ahead, which was okay with me. I'm still sort of taking it easy (such as it is) on speedwork this week...or at least that's what my plan was.
Gilbert didn't really give us a time goal, except to say 10K pace. "10K pace" means something other than your current 10K pace, however. I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to be, but we decided to shoot for 4:30 for 1000m, or 7:10/mile pace. First repeat was almost perfect, and as we trotted the 200m recovery, we thought we were getting the 3:00 minute rest that we had last time we did this workout. Au, contraire! We got the 200m jog recovery and then we had to get going immediately. Well, this would be different! The recoveries were more like 1:40-1:45 for us today, making this quite a different workout.
The next two repeats were a little quicker, but still in that normal range for us. Gilbert noticed that we were enjoying things a little much, though, and yelled at us to go faster. Okay. That kicked up our pace for the last two repeats considerably, and I think the last repeat was a personal best for this workout.
Splits: 4:31, 4:26, 4:27, 4:19, 4:11. Overall repeat pace 4:22, or 7:03/mile pace. That's some 5 seconds faster per repeat than last time we did this workout in December, and 7 seconds/mile faster average pace! Of course, this means that next time, we have to start out quicker, but that's the idea, I think.
I did 3x200m striders after that on the track, with exaggerated form, and at times, I almost felt like I had the whole running form thing down. As soon as I thought about it, it went away, but for just a moment there...
I ran back to RunTex alone after I stopped for a bit to talk with Mac Allen, another ex-Galloway person. That cooldown run was quicker than usual, as a result, but still enjoyable.
Full stretching again once I got back, and another running day in the books. Total miles today 7.8.
Monday, May 15, 2006
W-W-W-Wilke & The Gang of Four [Entered 5/18/06]
Monday, I reported to RunTex, as ordered, and joined a very small group for W-W-Wilke hill repeats. As I said on the Saturday entry, Gilbert had given me "The Look" when I kept trying to convince him that we didn't need to do Wilke today, and so I was resigned to my least favorite Gazelles workout. It was moderately cool, under 70 degrees, so at least we had that much luck. Rich, Brian, Shannon and David Mitchell joined me for the long warmup version of Wilke, and we had a fun warmup over and up to Wilke. We saw no cars in the close parking lot to Wilke, and once we got to the base of the hill, we realized that we were the only people there today. Everyone else had interpreted Gilbert's instructions the other way, and had gone for circuit workout at Austin High. We did the drills, and despite my suggestion, Shannon said we couldn't cut the workout short. Darn it! Shae showed up to check on us right when we were ready to start, and told us that Gilbert wanted 7 x Wilke, 3 uphill backwards Wilkes, and 2 uphill striders to finish it off.
And we were off. I focused on form, as I usually do on this workout, and ended up trailing the entire posse the whole morning. No worries, though. It's tougher when you don't have more people there, because if you're like me, you need other paces of runners to chase and/or run through as the workout progresses. Schade. Anyway, David left after 4 Wilkes, which wasn't a shock since he raced both weekend days. That left me definitely as the trailer on every repeat. I had a case of the "go ahead and quit, Jay" disease at about repeat number 5, but after I fought through that one, I knew I had to finish. It just wouldn't do to be the only one not completing our assignment. The other 3 stopped for water after number 6, but I went ahead and finished up right away, because I'm not sure I would've done it if I had rested.
That completed, the three backwards Wilkes were even tougher. Not so much as a gasping thing, but your quads get pretty toasted on this workout, and the backwards running uphill really finished them off. We were all groaning on those. The uphill striders at the end are actually pretty fun, as they loosen things up after all that agony that came before.
We were pretty chuffed that we had finished the workout when no one was there to yell at us. We decided that we needed a name, like superheroes. I suggested the Wilke Warriors, and I think some of the other suggestions weren't exactly printable in a public blog. After another last drink of water, we enjoyed our return jog home.
All things considered, I guess I sort of enjoy the feeling of completion for this workout, but I sure get stressed out during the deal. Total mileage for the day 7.2 miles or so.
Full stretching afterwards, and that's the whole deal.
Monday, I reported to RunTex, as ordered, and joined a very small group for W-W-Wilke hill repeats. As I said on the Saturday entry, Gilbert had given me "The Look" when I kept trying to convince him that we didn't need to do Wilke today, and so I was resigned to my least favorite Gazelles workout. It was moderately cool, under 70 degrees, so at least we had that much luck. Rich, Brian, Shannon and David Mitchell joined me for the long warmup version of Wilke, and we had a fun warmup over and up to Wilke. We saw no cars in the close parking lot to Wilke, and once we got to the base of the hill, we realized that we were the only people there today. Everyone else had interpreted Gilbert's instructions the other way, and had gone for circuit workout at Austin High. We did the drills, and despite my suggestion, Shannon said we couldn't cut the workout short. Darn it! Shae showed up to check on us right when we were ready to start, and told us that Gilbert wanted 7 x Wilke, 3 uphill backwards Wilkes, and 2 uphill striders to finish it off.
And we were off. I focused on form, as I usually do on this workout, and ended up trailing the entire posse the whole morning. No worries, though. It's tougher when you don't have more people there, because if you're like me, you need other paces of runners to chase and/or run through as the workout progresses. Schade. Anyway, David left after 4 Wilkes, which wasn't a shock since he raced both weekend days. That left me definitely as the trailer on every repeat. I had a case of the "go ahead and quit, Jay" disease at about repeat number 5, but after I fought through that one, I knew I had to finish. It just wouldn't do to be the only one not completing our assignment. The other 3 stopped for water after number 6, but I went ahead and finished up right away, because I'm not sure I would've done it if I had rested.
That completed, the three backwards Wilkes were even tougher. Not so much as a gasping thing, but your quads get pretty toasted on this workout, and the backwards running uphill really finished them off. We were all groaning on those. The uphill striders at the end are actually pretty fun, as they loosen things up after all that agony that came before.
We were pretty chuffed that we had finished the workout when no one was there to yell at us. We decided that we needed a name, like superheroes. I suggested the Wilke Warriors, and I think some of the other suggestions weren't exactly printable in a public blog. After another last drink of water, we enjoyed our return jog home.
All things considered, I guess I sort of enjoy the feeling of completion for this workout, but I sure get stressed out during the deal. Total mileage for the day 7.2 miles or so.
Full stretching afterwards, and that's the whole deal.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Return to Semi-Long Runs [Entered 5/18/06]
Saturday, it was time for the week-after long run to settle down the legs. I was bad, and failed to run on Thursday or attend a gym visit, but I was looking forward to some relaxed mileage on Saturday. Weather was nice in the mid-60's, and we had a big crew to run with. The conversation was relaxed as we cruised around Town Lake. I thought about cutting it short at 7 miles, but I felt great, so I hung with the crowd for the full 10.1 miles. No fast finish, though, because I promised Gilbert I'd be a good boy if I ran that far. He didn't want me to go more than 7 miles, but like I said, it felt easy enough. Overall running pace was about 9:15/mile, but we had three water stops totalling maybe 5-6 minutes, so true overall pace was slower than that. Whatever. I did what I was supposed to do, go out and run nice and easy. We did 6 striders afterwards, too, and they didn't even suck. :-)
We finished it off with the full stretching routine, which was as expected. I felt great today, and next week maybe I'll even get back in the full swing of things?
I sort of embarrassed myself after stretching when I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Gilbert that I didn't need to do Wilke on Monday. He was adamant that I needed Wilke, and he even gave me "The Look," so I knew further argument was futile. Everyone else gets to do circuits, but my gang gets to do Wilke. Oh, well. Good for my mental toughening, I suppose.
For the week, a paltry 16 miles, plus or minus. I'll chalk it up as a running vacation following the end of my spring racing season.
Saturday, it was time for the week-after long run to settle down the legs. I was bad, and failed to run on Thursday or attend a gym visit, but I was looking forward to some relaxed mileage on Saturday. Weather was nice in the mid-60's, and we had a big crew to run with. The conversation was relaxed as we cruised around Town Lake. I thought about cutting it short at 7 miles, but I felt great, so I hung with the crowd for the full 10.1 miles. No fast finish, though, because I promised Gilbert I'd be a good boy if I ran that far. He didn't want me to go more than 7 miles, but like I said, it felt easy enough. Overall running pace was about 9:15/mile, but we had three water stops totalling maybe 5-6 minutes, so true overall pace was slower than that. Whatever. I did what I was supposed to do, go out and run nice and easy. We did 6 striders afterwards, too, and they didn't even suck. :-)
We finished it off with the full stretching routine, which was as expected. I felt great today, and next week maybe I'll even get back in the full swing of things?
I sort of embarrassed myself after stretching when I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Gilbert that I didn't need to do Wilke on Monday. He was adamant that I needed Wilke, and he even gave me "The Look," so I knew further argument was futile. Everyone else gets to do circuits, but my gang gets to do Wilke. Oh, well. Good for my mental toughening, I suppose.
For the week, a paltry 16 miles, plus or minus. I'll chalk it up as a running vacation following the end of my spring racing season.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
400m Repeats (...And I thought this was an easy week?) [Entered 5/18/06]
Wednesday, after a couple of full days off of running, I joined the herd for the first time since Indy for 400m repeats. Turns out, if Gilbert had been there, he would have sent me off to do an easy 5-7 miles instead, but we had Bernard as substitute coach, and I got no such dispensation from him. Oh, well. I figured I'd do the minimum number of repeats and would not press the pace, and I should be fine.
It was fun to see the gang again, and we chattered away on the way to Austin High. It was really warm and muggy today, especially after the great weather in Indy, so we weren't all that comfortable. Drills and such, and it was time to go. Our group chose to do 10x400m, and I vowed to run with the second pack instead of trying to push the pace at all. Except for the conditions, the workout went just fine. I felt a little sluggish, but we ended up with an average pace more or less near our latest efforts. I'm not sure if I could have done too many more than 10 repeats, but I didn't feel unnecessarily blown away by the workout, either. Probably too much so soon after Indy, but I might have gotten away with it.
Our splits: 1:41, 1:41, 1:38, 1:40, 1:38, 1:37, 1:41, 1:34, 1:37, 1:36. Average lap 1:38, around 6:35/mile pace. I'll take it.
After quite a bit of Powerade and water, we eased back to RunTex, where I did a good stretching session. I could tell that I haven't stretched in a while, too, because there were a few stretches that told me so.
I was glad to be out there, but I think that's plenty of fast stuff for this week. Total mileage for the day was a little over 6 miles.
Wednesday, after a couple of full days off of running, I joined the herd for the first time since Indy for 400m repeats. Turns out, if Gilbert had been there, he would have sent me off to do an easy 5-7 miles instead, but we had Bernard as substitute coach, and I got no such dispensation from him. Oh, well. I figured I'd do the minimum number of repeats and would not press the pace, and I should be fine.
It was fun to see the gang again, and we chattered away on the way to Austin High. It was really warm and muggy today, especially after the great weather in Indy, so we weren't all that comfortable. Drills and such, and it was time to go. Our group chose to do 10x400m, and I vowed to run with the second pack instead of trying to push the pace at all. Except for the conditions, the workout went just fine. I felt a little sluggish, but we ended up with an average pace more or less near our latest efforts. I'm not sure if I could have done too many more than 10 repeats, but I didn't feel unnecessarily blown away by the workout, either. Probably too much so soon after Indy, but I might have gotten away with it.
Our splits: 1:41, 1:41, 1:38, 1:40, 1:38, 1:37, 1:41, 1:34, 1:37, 1:36. Average lap 1:38, around 6:35/mile pace. I'll take it.
After quite a bit of Powerade and water, we eased back to RunTex, where I did a good stretching session. I could tell that I haven't stretched in a while, too, because there were a few stretches that told me so.
I was glad to be out there, but I think that's plenty of fast stuff for this week. Total mileage for the day was a little over 6 miles.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
The Morning (and Day) After [Entered 5/9/06]
After the long night of post-race feeding and drinking, we got up at a reasonable 8:00 am for our post-race recovery run on Sunday. Frank had an early flight, so he didn't join us, but Alex came with Richard, Jeff and me for the short drive up to Butler University and our access point to the towpath trail along a canal. This course is really flat, and soft surfaces underfoot, so it was ideal for our recovery journey. The weather was, duh, great, and after the initial half mile or so of balky legs, it was a lot of fun. The towpath is surrounded by trees, and it was really serene running along there. It was hard to believe that we were still inside a bustling city. We just went out and back, and ended up with 4.7 miles at about 9:30/mile average pace. It was exactly what we needed. Alex chose to do a leisurely walk instead of the run, and I think all of us got what we were looking for out of the run. This was almost certainly the last run with long sleeves for the foreseeable future.
We followed that up with another enormous breakfast at the hotel, of course. After checking out of the hotel, we dropped Alex off at the Speedway so he could watch all the Indy practice racing and all that fun stuff, and the rest of us went down to a nice park and conservatory for a nature hike, of sorts. We walked maybe 3 miles, total, and then made our way back up north for a final Indy meal. They all had pizza again, but I went with a sandwich instead. I was still pretty full from the breakfast feast, after all. :-)
We hooked back up with Alex, and then headed to the airport. The Austin flight was later than the Charlotte flight, so we had a leisurely journey to get checked in. Security wasn't too bad for Richard and me, but Alex was in a different lane, and they had a special little "sniffing" machine that you had to go through, which checked for residue of bad-guy materials I suppose. Alex passed the inspection.
After hanging out for a while, scavenging the Indianapolis newspapers left lying around by other passengers, we sort of noticed that the scheduled boarding time had come and gone for our flight, and there was no plane at the gate. Hmmmm... We joined the long line of passengers to find out what was happening with our flight. All we heard from the terrible PA system at the gate was that our plane had to be replaced with another aircraft, and it would arrive in time for a 7:15 departure from Indy to St. Louis. That would be significantly later than our previously scheduled 5:55 pm flight. The good news was that our St. Louis to Austin flight also was slightly delayed, with a 7:30 pm departure from St. Louis. With the time change between Indy and St. Louis (EST to CST), we had a fighting chance of a very fast run in the St. Louis terminal to make our connecting flight. Maybe it would even be delayed a bit more to help us out?
We made fast friends with the passengers around us in line as we stood there for a while. Alex told us that this made 2 out of 2 trips from Indy where he would have air travel issues getting home. I sort of took a casual approach to the whole thing, figuring we'd get somewhere at some time, and then we'd figure out the rest. Richard had the same approach, I think. We decided that if we could get as far as either Houston or Dallas from St. Louis, we could rent a car for the rest of the journey, and we could get our luggage later. When we finally reached the gate agent, she confirmed that we had a short but manageable layover in St. Louis for our Austin flight, so we were pretty happy about that. Richard asked what the gate situation would be, so we could gauge our terminal sprinting options. To our happy surprise, it appeared that we'd arrive and depart from the same gate B14 in St. Louis! She double checked, and then we found out the best part: Our plane from Indy was also the same aircraft and crew for the St. Louis-Austin flight, so we were golden! We were pretty stoked after that bit of luck, and repaired to the terminal bar for a quick celebratory beer. Thanks, Richard, for that! The plane arrived, and, giggling, we boarded for our now leisurely trip home.
The stewardess let me put my travel guitar in the coat closet on board, and she said that she wanted a song on the Austin flight. Okay. The first flight was short and uneventful, except that we physically changed planes for the next leg of the journey. Same crew, different airframe. After a very quick 15 minute turnover in St. Louis, we were off for the longer final flight to Austin. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it from her point of view), the gate people in St. Louis made me leave the guitar at gate check, so I couldn't sing for my supper, so to speak, on that final flight. Oh, well. :-) Instead, I finished off a book I was reading and knocked out a Sudoku puzzle or two, and we found ourselves back in Austin. An hour later than scheduled, but really not too bad.
We said our goodbyes, and from there it was just a matter of reaclimating to the nighttime heat of Austin as we walked to our cars. I was glad to see that the weekend hail and rainstorms had not damaged the mighty Tahoe in the open parking lot!
All in all, a fun end to a fun weekend running vacation. Monday is a full day off, which will be great!
After the long night of post-race feeding and drinking, we got up at a reasonable 8:00 am for our post-race recovery run on Sunday. Frank had an early flight, so he didn't join us, but Alex came with Richard, Jeff and me for the short drive up to Butler University and our access point to the towpath trail along a canal. This course is really flat, and soft surfaces underfoot, so it was ideal for our recovery journey. The weather was, duh, great, and after the initial half mile or so of balky legs, it was a lot of fun. The towpath is surrounded by trees, and it was really serene running along there. It was hard to believe that we were still inside a bustling city. We just went out and back, and ended up with 4.7 miles at about 9:30/mile average pace. It was exactly what we needed. Alex chose to do a leisurely walk instead of the run, and I think all of us got what we were looking for out of the run. This was almost certainly the last run with long sleeves for the foreseeable future.
We followed that up with another enormous breakfast at the hotel, of course. After checking out of the hotel, we dropped Alex off at the Speedway so he could watch all the Indy practice racing and all that fun stuff, and the rest of us went down to a nice park and conservatory for a nature hike, of sorts. We walked maybe 3 miles, total, and then made our way back up north for a final Indy meal. They all had pizza again, but I went with a sandwich instead. I was still pretty full from the breakfast feast, after all. :-)
We hooked back up with Alex, and then headed to the airport. The Austin flight was later than the Charlotte flight, so we had a leisurely journey to get checked in. Security wasn't too bad for Richard and me, but Alex was in a different lane, and they had a special little "sniffing" machine that you had to go through, which checked for residue of bad-guy materials I suppose. Alex passed the inspection.
After hanging out for a while, scavenging the Indianapolis newspapers left lying around by other passengers, we sort of noticed that the scheduled boarding time had come and gone for our flight, and there was no plane at the gate. Hmmmm... We joined the long line of passengers to find out what was happening with our flight. All we heard from the terrible PA system at the gate was that our plane had to be replaced with another aircraft, and it would arrive in time for a 7:15 departure from Indy to St. Louis. That would be significantly later than our previously scheduled 5:55 pm flight. The good news was that our St. Louis to Austin flight also was slightly delayed, with a 7:30 pm departure from St. Louis. With the time change between Indy and St. Louis (EST to CST), we had a fighting chance of a very fast run in the St. Louis terminal to make our connecting flight. Maybe it would even be delayed a bit more to help us out?
We made fast friends with the passengers around us in line as we stood there for a while. Alex told us that this made 2 out of 2 trips from Indy where he would have air travel issues getting home. I sort of took a casual approach to the whole thing, figuring we'd get somewhere at some time, and then we'd figure out the rest. Richard had the same approach, I think. We decided that if we could get as far as either Houston or Dallas from St. Louis, we could rent a car for the rest of the journey, and we could get our luggage later. When we finally reached the gate agent, she confirmed that we had a short but manageable layover in St. Louis for our Austin flight, so we were pretty happy about that. Richard asked what the gate situation would be, so we could gauge our terminal sprinting options. To our happy surprise, it appeared that we'd arrive and depart from the same gate B14 in St. Louis! She double checked, and then we found out the best part: Our plane from Indy was also the same aircraft and crew for the St. Louis-Austin flight, so we were golden! We were pretty stoked after that bit of luck, and repaired to the terminal bar for a quick celebratory beer. Thanks, Richard, for that! The plane arrived, and, giggling, we boarded for our now leisurely trip home.
The stewardess let me put my travel guitar in the coat closet on board, and she said that she wanted a song on the Austin flight. Okay. The first flight was short and uneventful, except that we physically changed planes for the next leg of the journey. Same crew, different airframe. After a very quick 15 minute turnover in St. Louis, we were off for the longer final flight to Austin. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it from her point of view), the gate people in St. Louis made me leave the guitar at gate check, so I couldn't sing for my supper, so to speak, on that final flight. Oh, well. :-) Instead, I finished off a book I was reading and knocked out a Sudoku puzzle or two, and we found ourselves back in Austin. An hour later than scheduled, but really not too bad.
We said our goodbyes, and from there it was just a matter of reaclimating to the nighttime heat of Austin as we walked to our cars. I was glad to see that the weekend hail and rainstorms had not damaged the mighty Tahoe in the open parking lot!
All in all, a fun end to a fun weekend running vacation. Monday is a full day off, which will be great!
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon [Entered 5/20/06]
Race goals: Indy PR: 1:49:36 (2005), Masters PR: 1:44:41 (corrected time from short course at 3M in 2/06), Lifetime PR: 1:44:04 (Nov. 1993), Calculated potential time from Bun Run 5K: 1:41:28. I'd like to finally beat that pesky lifetime PR of 1:44:04 today. That's my primary goal, and I should be able to get it with the great weather. My race plan is to go out and average 8:00/mile or so until we get to the Speedway, then pick it up slightly around 8 miles, and to "GO!" at mile 10, throwing down on the last 5K. That's what I did last year (different time goals), and it worked great.
I got up nice and early at 5:45 to get moving. I slept well last night, and I felt great once I got up. Immediately, I started snacking on a banana and Gatorade Endurance Formula (there were packets of mix in our race goodie bags). I made sure that all my post-race gear was in my check bag, and pulled on some extra clothes for the walk over to the park and starting area. A check of the TV showed fantastic 45 degree temperatures, and the predicted weather showed it would rise only to about 51 degrees by the time I would be done with the race. Excellent! I went with a singlet and shorts, my full Gazelles Fila outfit, with extra clothes over them for now. I was supposed to meet the Gazelles in the lobby at 6:15 am, so I wished Jeff and Andy good luck, and went on down to the lobby. After waiting for a while, it appeared that I either missed the Gazelles or they were running late, so I got out of there and started my walk to the start area.
The streams of people migrating around the starting corrals were steady as I strolled west to the start line. Our hotel was right at Corral "X," about a third of a mile from the start line. I had qualified this year for Corral "C," the third seed corral. Last year, I was in Corral "G," so this was a big promotion for me. It would be interesting to see how different it was racing up near the front. It felt great outside, by the way. Nice and chilly, just perfect running weather, especially for early May. For us Texas boys, it was downright cold, but a welcome thing. I finished off my pre-race Gatorade on the way to the gear check, and tossed that. Once I got to the gear truck, after I messed around a bit, I ran into Frank, Alex and Richard, so that worked out after all. I took off most of my extra clothes, made sure I had my Enervitene and my race number, and turned my gear bag in. Time for a warmup!
Richard was the Indy Newbie this year, so we showed him where the Indy Runners tent was for meeting after the race. This was while we did some fitful jogging around in Military Park. We also took a peek at the finishing stretch, pointing out to him about the "false finish" indicators and showing him the finish line. After that quick reconnaissance, we jogged over to the starting area for some drills and such. We ran up the course a bit, and found runner's Nirvana: A solitary port-o-john just waiting for our personal use. No lines, no worries. Okay, it wasn't like a sword in the stone or anything mystical like that, but for some of the other guys, it was a magical thing. :-) We did the Gazelles drills and some striders, and after a last pre-race stop, we were all ready to go. The wheelchair racers were staging in that parking lot, so it was humbling to see them get ready to race as we jogged around. Those guys and gals are tough!
As we walked back to the corrals, "Back Home In Indiana" was being sung. Not the great Jim Nabors' version, but a part of the pomp and circumstance of the morning nonetheless. Alex stopped off with the big boys in Corral A, Frank in Corral B, and Richard and I slid into the back of Corral C, the Seeded Group 3 corral, which was jammed full. Thankfully, there were no beach balls bouncing through the crowds where we were. That was a relief! National Anthem was solid but not spectacular. The pre-race music over the loudspeakers was deafening, but we never heard a horn or gun to start the thing off. It was more of a "On your marks, get set, go!" type deal. I didn't ditch my over-shirt until after we were moving after the start. Finally got rid of that 2004 Decker shirt! It only took 4 or 5 races to get rid of it. We walked for a bit, and finally broke into a trot right before the start line. We hit our watches, and it was time to get down to business!
I ran with Richard for quite a while. Figured I'd run my race, and if we ran together for the whole thing, good for both of us. If not, no big deal. In the meantime, I acted as a tour guide, of sorts, showing him and telling him about the course. Since he didn't get to drive the course yesterday, this would be all unexplored territory for him today.
Mile one: It was 1:30 or so to the start line. In the first mile we saw two preachers (left and right on the course). The first guy was really monotone in approach, but the second guy was much more of a fire and brimstone guy. His text for the day was that in the "Race Of Life," we all will lose that race to Death, and what will we do then? God help me, I giggled because it was a lot like Richard Pryor's preacher character's sermon/eulogy on one of those great comedy records. You may remember: "We all must face the ultimate test, Death. And, so far as we know, ain't nobody passed the Ultimate Test. Least of all, this [fellow] laying here." Just past that second preacher, there was a trio of kids (15-16) playing "Fire" by Hendrix. Random other musical acts, Zoo, elephant, and first corner. Slightly slow, but it was way too early to panic. Easy first mile is almost always a good idea in a longer race. Turned the corner. 8:24 to the first mile.
Mile two: This mile featured a bunch of the regular entertainers from past years. First, the same two ladies in the church parking lot singing with taped accompaniment. They really are pretty good. Very slight incline in mile two, but nothing to us, really. The same couple of acts later on that stretch, including the church group with pounding reggae and steel drum Caribbean music and the guy in the portable stage with his guitar playing along to his own pre-recorded backing tracks. Pretty cool. Next corner. Now on a long straight stretch going west, we heard a bunch of music. There was a cool band of two kids who couldn't have been much older than 14, playing guitars and some sort of metal rock tune, possibly self-composed. Their band name was "Over The Garage," which we thought was a pretty cool name. There was the almost obligatory DJ guy playing electronica, and then, for me, the musical highlight of the day: A cello player and a mandolin player, dancing their way through "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)" as if it was written for those two instruments. It would have been great fun in any case, but Richard pointed out that the best part was that they were really performing the piece. It wasn't a casual thing cobbled together that morning, but something that they had worked out ahead of time. The mandolin player had the famous guitar/bass riff going, and the cello guy had the "lay down and boogie and play that funky music till you die" descending musical riff for his instrument. Just priceless, but we had work to do. Remember that we only got maybe 10-15 seconds of enjoyment out of any particular band, because of the density of other acts on the road and our relative speed going by. We passed Coach Hathaway, a local Indy running coach and legendary figure, during mile 2. He's 74 or 75, and still turns out a half marathon in under 2 hours. Now that's something to aspire to do! This would be the first year I've finished in front of him in three years...but of course I've got a significant age advantage on him. Split, mile 2: 7:57, right on my projected early pace. I was still "behind" on my 5 mile pace goal, but it was way too early to worry about that. I was feeling great, and the rising sun was at our backs.
Miles 3 and 4: Finally reached the end of that western straightaway, and turned north for a little bit. Our usual rapper guy on that stretch was singing with backup tape at the time we went by, so we missed out on his rapping this year. Oh, well. I pointed out to Richard that he'd be returning to the same intersection as we turned back west for another long straightaway. This year, I beat the leaders to that corner, so that's an improvement! It would be about mile 10 on the way back, and for us, mile 4. As we passed the transmission factory on the left, we saw the clogging ladies on the right, very seriously going about their craft, and a family band on the right, playing "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang. Very Partridge Family type deal. They launched into "Sweet Home Alabama" as we faded out of their sonic envelope. More rock and roll, too, from other bands. Life was good. We were visiting about every 2 or 3 miles for fluids, which was easy, because they had great amounts of stuff on both sides of the road, and huge "Pit Area" signs rising up to tell you what was ahead. The mile markers were fantastic, too. They were probably 12-15 feet high, with clocks on each one, and in day-glo orange, they were easy to see. They really do a great job with this race! Splits, miles 3 and 4: 7:49, 7:43. Oops. We got a little carried away, but no worries. Just settle down a bit. No harm done.
Mile 5: We turned north again, caught more good tunes as we crossed the mile 5 timing mat. I took my first Enervitene there. A band was playing Tommy TuTone's "867-5309 (Jenny)" as we went by there. Fortunately for me, there were so many other musical acts, I got that song wiped out of memory pretty quickly. Mile 5 split (7:53) right on schedule. I was around the 8:00/mile pace mark (7:57/mile) overall, which could be turned into a PR effort with a decent finishing 5K. I've done it countless times on long training runs, dropping overall pace for a run by a bunch just by accelerating at the end. Stay with the plan, Jay.
Mile 6: Another corner later, we turned towards the Speedway. It's really big, even from the outside. As we approached the entrance, we passed a gaggle of bagpipers outside the Speedway, and there was a big semi-truck parked across the road to enforce the fact that we had to enter the Speedway for the next 3 miles. Richard and I rolled down the short hill and underpass, and back up the other side into the Speedway proper. We immediately came upon the first cheerleading squad inside the Raceway, as well as a water stop and the 6 mile marker. I sipped water there and poured the rest over my head. It was still nice out, but I had to keep remembering to cool down with water. Split mile 6: 8:05. Okay, slight slip with the Enervitene and corners. Don't get distracted now!
Mile 7 and 8: On the track proper, once we toured the infield for a quarter mile or so, Richard and I ran down the backstretch of the 2.5 mile oval, and Richard finally understood what we had told him about the size of the place. It's just enormous, and it looks like it's forever to the corner (Turn 3). The guys exiting the track as we entered it were fast guys, of course, with a 2.5 mile lead on us already, and their pack was pretty small. Not so with our gang. It was nonstop people streaming along the track. We were running 5 to 8 people wide along the track, but you didn't have a problem running your pace if you just paid attention. The grass just off the track is very lush and almost unnaturally green, and the grandstands are empty of people but huge. There's no live music on the track (Speedway rules, I suppose), but they were playing stuff over the loudspeakers. We got "ABC" by the Jackson 5, "Fins" by Jimmy Buffett, and "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, along with one other tune that now escapes me. Last year, they taunted us with "Hot, Hot, Hot," but that wasn't as appropriate this year. :-) Richard told me to go on ahead if that was my plan, so I pulled away from him between turns 3 and 4 of the track, and kept on going. I heard Richard tell me that if I could finish in 2 minutes, I had a chance at winning, which was funny. It was true that at that exact moment between mile 7 and 8, the big video screens showed the leader about 3 minutes from the finish line. At least this year, I was more than halfway done when the winner finished!
My pace had slipped a bit during mile 7, which happens for a couple of reasons. One, the crowd of runners compacts down since we have less flat ground to maneuver within, and two, this is when those who've gone out too fast usually start feeling it. So, if you're not careful, and you're running with the crowd, you can slow down without knowing it. I picked it back up for mile 8, and crossed the yard of bricks on the track. I was steadily passing people, and kept making my way through the crowds around turn 1 (more cheerleaders here, in a 60's sort of costumes), turn 2, and finally we were out of the Speedway, on our way to the finish. There were still enormous streams of people pouring onto the track as we exited, with hours to go. It's just a staggeringly large crowd. Splits miles 7 and 8: 8:07, 7:47.
Mile 9: Now out of the Speedway, we did some quick zig-zags, past several musical acts (was this where the high school stage band was doing "Brick House?"), including the guy from last year with his 12-string guitar. This year, he was singing Dave Mathews Band songs, with a vastly understated version of that band's groove. I enjoyed the stretch of deep shade along here, and kept moving steadily forward. Almost time to "GO!" This stretch isn't that interesting, and it has a lot of sharp little turns, so it's easy to get off your pace. I proved that rule with a pedestrian 8:13 mile 9. Oops. Seeing that split made me snap to attention. I had sort of gotten lulled to sleep by the crowds slowing around me, and forgot to run my race. Now I had work to do.
Mile 10: As I crossed the 15K marker, I admit that I thought to myself, "Only 3.8 miles to go." A few more quick turns, and finally we passed that corner where the crowd was at mile 4 and we were at mile 10. A band at the corner was playing Grand Funk Railroad's "Heartbreaker," which was a blast from the past for me. I was a big GFR fan as a 13 year old boy. Is that too much information here? The stream of humanity was still very thick at that point going the opposite direction from us (their mile 4), but most of them were probably 30 minutes behind us just crossing the starting line, so no big deal. To this point, I had heard no songs repeated, which was remarkable. Last year, I heard a bunch of repeats. Would that streak continue? At any rate, I downed my second Enervitene and stepped across the 10 mile timing mat. Time to "GO!" Mile 10 split: 7:54, back on track. Overall pace through 10 miles 7:59. I had to get my act in gear if I hoped to PR today!
Mile 11: This mile was a long straightaway, and it seemed like it would never end. I was actually straining my eyes trying to pick out the sign ahead of me. Even with shades on, running into the sun made this a tough stretch to relax the tension around the eyes. I had picked up my effort level at mile 10, as instructed by Gilbert, and I was passing bunches of people now, which made it very satisfying. Good music along here, including some very good metal and rock (I think I heard a Metallica tune, for instance), and an excellent bluegrass band on the right. I believe the band "Necropharmacon" was the metal act. Cool name, but a little creepy, I guess. Also during this stretch was the guy playing "Here Comes The Sun" all by his lonesome. He did a pretty good job, too. The funny thing with him is that Jeff reported that he was singing the same song when he ran by some 8-10 minutes ahead of me. I think Richard said he was playing it when he went by after me, too. I suppose that, except for those spectators standing around you, you could conceivably play the same song over and over in this sort of gig. Your audience only spends 15-30 seconds with you, so you could go a long way with a repertoire of two songs. :-)
By this time, I grabbed my last cup of gatorade, and poured one last cup of water over my head. Fortunately, I kept those two things straight, and didn't create a Jay Marmalade with sugar water in my hair. Mile 11 split: 7:42.
Mile 12: Reaching the end of the straightaway, I heard the same rock band fronted by a good woman singer from last year. She was blasting out Melissa Etheridge's "I'm The Only One" this year instead of AC/DC tunes, and she was good! That propelled me around the corner and along the river down to the bridges. Now there was no stopping for anymore water or fluids, since the race was almost done. I cut tangents as best as I could, and rolled along towards the bridge across the river. Once again, I was fooled by the first two bridges in line, thinking I was almost done, but I just kept running. My friendly caribbean steel drum band was there again, as well as more rock music to keep us going. The mile 12 marker was just before the bridge, and I really only checked quickly to make sure I had a shot at a PR. Hasty calculations showed I had a good shot if I kept blasting. Mile 12 split: 7:43. I was working harder now, but I felt like I had enough left for a final big push.
Mile 13: Turning onto the bridge and a very slight incline (exceedingly slight), I was up and over it before it even registered that there was an elevation change. I took advantage of the slight downhill bit after that, and rolled into mile 13. By now, I had eyes only for the signs along the side of the road. I was uncomfortable now, but that was because I had picked it up some more, and I was driving to the tape. 3/4 of a mile to go! More running, more passing. 1/2 mile to go! False finish overhead bridge went by. I heard my first AC/DC song of the day right about here, "You Shook Me All Night Long." It was a CD playing, but it was still inspiration enough. Crowds cheering. Finally, the overhead photographers' cranes and the 1/4 mile mark. With the grandstands on the right, I pushed very hard all the way to the finish line, which now was finally visible. Mile 13 split: 7:27. Driving to the tape, I crossed as the clock ticked 1:45:00. I was done! Last 0.1 miles: 0:46, 6:25/mile pace for the killer sprint.
The Stats: 1:43:30 finishing time. I finally beat that younger Jay's time from 1993, by some 34 seconds. Mission accomplished. Lifetime PR, Indy PR (improved 6 minutes from last year), I ran my race plan, and it worked great. I had a great finishing 5K (23:38, 7:35/mile pace), and my last miles were my fastest. It is always great to run past people at the end of a long hard race. Except for some erratic miles there on the Speedway, I did a good job of pacing. Now I just have to work on replacing the only race times from my younger days that exist as PR's: 5K, 8K, 10K, and 15K. All longer race PR's are all since I turned 40, and most of those were set in the last 8 months.
More Stats: Finished 2729/27642 overall, a nice improvement over last year. More numbers, you say? 2342/13305 among male finishers, 279/1672 in my age group, 388 of 14337 women finished ahead of me, the oldest woman finishing ahead of me was in the 50-59 yr age group (3 of 'em, in fact), and the oldest man finishing ahead of me was in the 65-69 yr age group (just one guy in that group).
A little delirious, I gathered myself and made my way through the finishing chutes. Medal, water bottle, grocery sack, tons of food. You just walk along and turn the corner, and just collect stuff for your goodie bag. Banana? Why, yes! Apple? Don't mind if I do. Big 'ol cookies? One of each kind, I think. Potato chips? A man needs his salt replenishment, right? Wandered over to gear trucks, but the line looked pretty long, so I went for a cooldown jog instead. With food bag in hand, I jogged along the first part of the course. Peeked for a bit into the piles of clothing on the side of the road, looking for my Decker shirt. That would have been funny to find it, but alas, I didn't see it. Now, I was cooling down pretty quickly, and I needed my clothes in my gear bag. Still jogging along, I circled the museum there, and found my way into the backside of the park and the Indy Runners tent. I found the rest of the guys, except for Richard, and we chattered a bit about the race and our times. After hanging out a bit more, I went back to the gear truck to see if the line had dwindled. No such luck. It was now three times as long of a wait. Okay. More jogging to see if I could find a random piece of clothing to warm up in until I could get my stuff, and by then they had scooped all of that up. Oh, well. Back around again to Indy Runners, where I found everyone again along with Richard. I was getting a bit cool by now, not dangerously so, but I really looked forward to a long-sleeved shirt. Richard decided to go with me to see about the gear again, and this time, the line was shorter, but still no picnic. One of the guys in line said that the 5K truck had some of our bags, so I went over there, and after 30 seconds, I finally had my gear. Bliss! Happiness!
Putting on a long sleeved t-shirt and long pants was almost a magical feeling. Ahhhhhhh! Richard and I walked back again along the canal there, avoiding the massive crowds in Military Park, and returned for the last time to the tent. Alex and Frank had disappeared and were gone for quite a while. I thought they might have gone back to the hotel. I mixed up my Endurox and drank that down, and gobbled down a bunch more of the food in my goodie bag as we stood there. Saw some of the Indy runners that I knew from previous years, and that was pretty fun. Alex and Frank returned after a while, and they had been at the beer garden "listening to the band." Yeah. As they decided to go back for "more music," Richard and I went back to the hotel. Jeff and Andy went over to see more of Jeff's Indy pals. Richard and I had a nice stroll back, enjoying the beautiful morning. It was still only about mid-50's by then, maybe low 60's, and by now it was almost 11:00. The runners were still pouring across the finishing line even then.
Once we got cleaned up, the group split up again. Frank and Alex went for pizza and beer at Bazbeaux's (downtown). Richard joined the Carolina boys and me for some historical touring of town (who knows? Maybe a couple of miles of walking there?), and then we went up to Broad Ripple, a trendy suburb, to meet Jeff's friend Mark at a brew pub. I had a really good Grand Cru there, and the five of us shared what can only be described as an overabundance of great fries as a snack. It looked like a witch's hat turned upside down on the table. It was called "L'Enorme," for good reason. :-) For the record, there were no fries left once we were done.
Fortified, we joined Mark for a post-snack walking tour up the Manon trail (it's a long paved trail that finds its way from downtown Indy all the way up north of town) and into the woods, down to the river. Who knows how long this walk was? I don't, but we were gone quite a while. I checked in with Alex via telephonic device, and apparently, I woke him up out of a monstrous nap. Perhaps it was a post-race coma? Frank was a little more coherent, and we told them where we'd be eating dinner so they could meet us there. More walking back to the brewpub, and we bid Mark adieu, and commenced yet another walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood. We made a grand loop of the neighborhoods surrounding Broad Ripple, and ended up back at our dinner location, the Union Jack Pub, exactly at the appointed time. I'm estimating that we walked at least 5 miles this afternoon after the race, and maybe closer to 7 miles. It was probably good for me, but I could tell I was getting tired by the end of that last long walk.
Alex and Frank arrived promptly, and we settled in for some serious food. Another Indy friend joined us for the feast, and we all had a frosty adult beverage to accompany the meal. I had a Black and Tan, which has become an Indy tradition for me, along with fish and chips (again, it's that tradition thing). Richard convinced me to try malt vinegar on the fish instead of ketchup, and I must admit that it was a nice change. That's what you get for having a Brit with you. The conversation was lively as we recounted our racing days. Alex destroyed his PR and got the coveted "First 500" special medal, Frank beat his existing Indy course record, you know about my race already, Richard had fun even though his lack of quality rest over the last few weeks got to him in the end, and Andy and Jeff both had good races. Jeff ran almost exactly the splits and final time from 2005, which was kind of spooky.
The Kentucky Derby was on and done while we sat, ate, drank, and talked. Some horse beat the other horses by a bunch. Yippee.
The meal complete, we waddled out of there, heavy laden with food. We piled into the Rent-Mobile and made our way back to the hotel...I guess it was around 7:00 or 8:00 by now? After a brief rest in the hotel, we headed out for our last appointment of the day, a late and final beer with Mark downtown across from Bazbeaux's. Frank and Alex had had enough for the day, and watched NASCAR instead. Richard joined Andy, Jeff and me for this last bit of the festivities. We enjoyed the lengthy assistance of our waiter, who joyfully toured us through the beer menu. There were maybe 50-80 selections, so it was a choice deal, you see. I ended up with a brown ale, quite good. The Carolina boys had a couple of interesting beers, and I think Richard did the Monte Python Holy Grail Ale (which was actually a pretty good beer, silly label excepted). We chatted with Mark for quite a while, and finally headed back to the hotel at "Dark:30." The walk to and from the bar was relaxing, and ended the day on a great note. After making plans for a morning recovery run with Richard, it was time to get some sleep.
All in all, a great day, a great race, and lots of fun with friends. What more can you ask?
Race goals: Indy PR: 1:49:36 (2005), Masters PR: 1:44:41 (corrected time from short course at 3M in 2/06), Lifetime PR: 1:44:04 (Nov. 1993), Calculated potential time from Bun Run 5K: 1:41:28. I'd like to finally beat that pesky lifetime PR of 1:44:04 today. That's my primary goal, and I should be able to get it with the great weather. My race plan is to go out and average 8:00/mile or so until we get to the Speedway, then pick it up slightly around 8 miles, and to "GO!" at mile 10, throwing down on the last 5K. That's what I did last year (different time goals), and it worked great.
I got up nice and early at 5:45 to get moving. I slept well last night, and I felt great once I got up. Immediately, I started snacking on a banana and Gatorade Endurance Formula (there were packets of mix in our race goodie bags). I made sure that all my post-race gear was in my check bag, and pulled on some extra clothes for the walk over to the park and starting area. A check of the TV showed fantastic 45 degree temperatures, and the predicted weather showed it would rise only to about 51 degrees by the time I would be done with the race. Excellent! I went with a singlet and shorts, my full Gazelles Fila outfit, with extra clothes over them for now. I was supposed to meet the Gazelles in the lobby at 6:15 am, so I wished Jeff and Andy good luck, and went on down to the lobby. After waiting for a while, it appeared that I either missed the Gazelles or they were running late, so I got out of there and started my walk to the start area.
The streams of people migrating around the starting corrals were steady as I strolled west to the start line. Our hotel was right at Corral "X," about a third of a mile from the start line. I had qualified this year for Corral "C," the third seed corral. Last year, I was in Corral "G," so this was a big promotion for me. It would be interesting to see how different it was racing up near the front. It felt great outside, by the way. Nice and chilly, just perfect running weather, especially for early May. For us Texas boys, it was downright cold, but a welcome thing. I finished off my pre-race Gatorade on the way to the gear check, and tossed that. Once I got to the gear truck, after I messed around a bit, I ran into Frank, Alex and Richard, so that worked out after all. I took off most of my extra clothes, made sure I had my Enervitene and my race number, and turned my gear bag in. Time for a warmup!
Richard was the Indy Newbie this year, so we showed him where the Indy Runners tent was for meeting after the race. This was while we did some fitful jogging around in Military Park. We also took a peek at the finishing stretch, pointing out to him about the "false finish" indicators and showing him the finish line. After that quick reconnaissance, we jogged over to the starting area for some drills and such. We ran up the course a bit, and found runner's Nirvana: A solitary port-o-john just waiting for our personal use. No lines, no worries. Okay, it wasn't like a sword in the stone or anything mystical like that, but for some of the other guys, it was a magical thing. :-) We did the Gazelles drills and some striders, and after a last pre-race stop, we were all ready to go. The wheelchair racers were staging in that parking lot, so it was humbling to see them get ready to race as we jogged around. Those guys and gals are tough!
As we walked back to the corrals, "Back Home In Indiana" was being sung. Not the great Jim Nabors' version, but a part of the pomp and circumstance of the morning nonetheless. Alex stopped off with the big boys in Corral A, Frank in Corral B, and Richard and I slid into the back of Corral C, the Seeded Group 3 corral, which was jammed full. Thankfully, there were no beach balls bouncing through the crowds where we were. That was a relief! National Anthem was solid but not spectacular. The pre-race music over the loudspeakers was deafening, but we never heard a horn or gun to start the thing off. It was more of a "On your marks, get set, go!" type deal. I didn't ditch my over-shirt until after we were moving after the start. Finally got rid of that 2004 Decker shirt! It only took 4 or 5 races to get rid of it. We walked for a bit, and finally broke into a trot right before the start line. We hit our watches, and it was time to get down to business!
I ran with Richard for quite a while. Figured I'd run my race, and if we ran together for the whole thing, good for both of us. If not, no big deal. In the meantime, I acted as a tour guide, of sorts, showing him and telling him about the course. Since he didn't get to drive the course yesterday, this would be all unexplored territory for him today.
Mile one: It was 1:30 or so to the start line. In the first mile we saw two preachers (left and right on the course). The first guy was really monotone in approach, but the second guy was much more of a fire and brimstone guy. His text for the day was that in the "Race Of Life," we all will lose that race to Death, and what will we do then? God help me, I giggled because it was a lot like Richard Pryor's preacher character's sermon/eulogy on one of those great comedy records. You may remember: "We all must face the ultimate test, Death. And, so far as we know, ain't nobody passed the Ultimate Test. Least of all, this [fellow] laying here." Just past that second preacher, there was a trio of kids (15-16) playing "Fire" by Hendrix. Random other musical acts, Zoo, elephant, and first corner. Slightly slow, but it was way too early to panic. Easy first mile is almost always a good idea in a longer race. Turned the corner. 8:24 to the first mile.
Mile two: This mile featured a bunch of the regular entertainers from past years. First, the same two ladies in the church parking lot singing with taped accompaniment. They really are pretty good. Very slight incline in mile two, but nothing to us, really. The same couple of acts later on that stretch, including the church group with pounding reggae and steel drum Caribbean music and the guy in the portable stage with his guitar playing along to his own pre-recorded backing tracks. Pretty cool. Next corner. Now on a long straight stretch going west, we heard a bunch of music. There was a cool band of two kids who couldn't have been much older than 14, playing guitars and some sort of metal rock tune, possibly self-composed. Their band name was "Over The Garage," which we thought was a pretty cool name. There was the almost obligatory DJ guy playing electronica, and then, for me, the musical highlight of the day: A cello player and a mandolin player, dancing their way through "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)" as if it was written for those two instruments. It would have been great fun in any case, but Richard pointed out that the best part was that they were really performing the piece. It wasn't a casual thing cobbled together that morning, but something that they had worked out ahead of time. The mandolin player had the famous guitar/bass riff going, and the cello guy had the "lay down and boogie and play that funky music till you die" descending musical riff for his instrument. Just priceless, but we had work to do. Remember that we only got maybe 10-15 seconds of enjoyment out of any particular band, because of the density of other acts on the road and our relative speed going by. We passed Coach Hathaway, a local Indy running coach and legendary figure, during mile 2. He's 74 or 75, and still turns out a half marathon in under 2 hours. Now that's something to aspire to do! This would be the first year I've finished in front of him in three years...but of course I've got a significant age advantage on him. Split, mile 2: 7:57, right on my projected early pace. I was still "behind" on my 5 mile pace goal, but it was way too early to worry about that. I was feeling great, and the rising sun was at our backs.
Miles 3 and 4: Finally reached the end of that western straightaway, and turned north for a little bit. Our usual rapper guy on that stretch was singing with backup tape at the time we went by, so we missed out on his rapping this year. Oh, well. I pointed out to Richard that he'd be returning to the same intersection as we turned back west for another long straightaway. This year, I beat the leaders to that corner, so that's an improvement! It would be about mile 10 on the way back, and for us, mile 4. As we passed the transmission factory on the left, we saw the clogging ladies on the right, very seriously going about their craft, and a family band on the right, playing "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang. Very Partridge Family type deal. They launched into "Sweet Home Alabama" as we faded out of their sonic envelope. More rock and roll, too, from other bands. Life was good. We were visiting about every 2 or 3 miles for fluids, which was easy, because they had great amounts of stuff on both sides of the road, and huge "Pit Area" signs rising up to tell you what was ahead. The mile markers were fantastic, too. They were probably 12-15 feet high, with clocks on each one, and in day-glo orange, they were easy to see. They really do a great job with this race! Splits, miles 3 and 4: 7:49, 7:43. Oops. We got a little carried away, but no worries. Just settle down a bit. No harm done.
Mile 5: We turned north again, caught more good tunes as we crossed the mile 5 timing mat. I took my first Enervitene there. A band was playing Tommy TuTone's "867-5309 (Jenny)" as we went by there. Fortunately for me, there were so many other musical acts, I got that song wiped out of memory pretty quickly. Mile 5 split (7:53) right on schedule. I was around the 8:00/mile pace mark (7:57/mile) overall, which could be turned into a PR effort with a decent finishing 5K. I've done it countless times on long training runs, dropping overall pace for a run by a bunch just by accelerating at the end. Stay with the plan, Jay.
Mile 6: Another corner later, we turned towards the Speedway. It's really big, even from the outside. As we approached the entrance, we passed a gaggle of bagpipers outside the Speedway, and there was a big semi-truck parked across the road to enforce the fact that we had to enter the Speedway for the next 3 miles. Richard and I rolled down the short hill and underpass, and back up the other side into the Speedway proper. We immediately came upon the first cheerleading squad inside the Raceway, as well as a water stop and the 6 mile marker. I sipped water there and poured the rest over my head. It was still nice out, but I had to keep remembering to cool down with water. Split mile 6: 8:05. Okay, slight slip with the Enervitene and corners. Don't get distracted now!
Mile 7 and 8: On the track proper, once we toured the infield for a quarter mile or so, Richard and I ran down the backstretch of the 2.5 mile oval, and Richard finally understood what we had told him about the size of the place. It's just enormous, and it looks like it's forever to the corner (Turn 3). The guys exiting the track as we entered it were fast guys, of course, with a 2.5 mile lead on us already, and their pack was pretty small. Not so with our gang. It was nonstop people streaming along the track. We were running 5 to 8 people wide along the track, but you didn't have a problem running your pace if you just paid attention. The grass just off the track is very lush and almost unnaturally green, and the grandstands are empty of people but huge. There's no live music on the track (Speedway rules, I suppose), but they were playing stuff over the loudspeakers. We got "ABC" by the Jackson 5, "Fins" by Jimmy Buffett, and "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, along with one other tune that now escapes me. Last year, they taunted us with "Hot, Hot, Hot," but that wasn't as appropriate this year. :-) Richard told me to go on ahead if that was my plan, so I pulled away from him between turns 3 and 4 of the track, and kept on going. I heard Richard tell me that if I could finish in 2 minutes, I had a chance at winning, which was funny. It was true that at that exact moment between mile 7 and 8, the big video screens showed the leader about 3 minutes from the finish line. At least this year, I was more than halfway done when the winner finished!
My pace had slipped a bit during mile 7, which happens for a couple of reasons. One, the crowd of runners compacts down since we have less flat ground to maneuver within, and two, this is when those who've gone out too fast usually start feeling it. So, if you're not careful, and you're running with the crowd, you can slow down without knowing it. I picked it back up for mile 8, and crossed the yard of bricks on the track. I was steadily passing people, and kept making my way through the crowds around turn 1 (more cheerleaders here, in a 60's sort of costumes), turn 2, and finally we were out of the Speedway, on our way to the finish. There were still enormous streams of people pouring onto the track as we exited, with hours to go. It's just a staggeringly large crowd. Splits miles 7 and 8: 8:07, 7:47.
Mile 9: Now out of the Speedway, we did some quick zig-zags, past several musical acts (was this where the high school stage band was doing "Brick House?"), including the guy from last year with his 12-string guitar. This year, he was singing Dave Mathews Band songs, with a vastly understated version of that band's groove. I enjoyed the stretch of deep shade along here, and kept moving steadily forward. Almost time to "GO!" This stretch isn't that interesting, and it has a lot of sharp little turns, so it's easy to get off your pace. I proved that rule with a pedestrian 8:13 mile 9. Oops. Seeing that split made me snap to attention. I had sort of gotten lulled to sleep by the crowds slowing around me, and forgot to run my race. Now I had work to do.
Mile 10: As I crossed the 15K marker, I admit that I thought to myself, "Only 3.8 miles to go." A few more quick turns, and finally we passed that corner where the crowd was at mile 4 and we were at mile 10. A band at the corner was playing Grand Funk Railroad's "Heartbreaker," which was a blast from the past for me. I was a big GFR fan as a 13 year old boy. Is that too much information here? The stream of humanity was still very thick at that point going the opposite direction from us (their mile 4), but most of them were probably 30 minutes behind us just crossing the starting line, so no big deal. To this point, I had heard no songs repeated, which was remarkable. Last year, I heard a bunch of repeats. Would that streak continue? At any rate, I downed my second Enervitene and stepped across the 10 mile timing mat. Time to "GO!" Mile 10 split: 7:54, back on track. Overall pace through 10 miles 7:59. I had to get my act in gear if I hoped to PR today!
Mile 11: This mile was a long straightaway, and it seemed like it would never end. I was actually straining my eyes trying to pick out the sign ahead of me. Even with shades on, running into the sun made this a tough stretch to relax the tension around the eyes. I had picked up my effort level at mile 10, as instructed by Gilbert, and I was passing bunches of people now, which made it very satisfying. Good music along here, including some very good metal and rock (I think I heard a Metallica tune, for instance), and an excellent bluegrass band on the right. I believe the band "Necropharmacon" was the metal act. Cool name, but a little creepy, I guess. Also during this stretch was the guy playing "Here Comes The Sun" all by his lonesome. He did a pretty good job, too. The funny thing with him is that Jeff reported that he was singing the same song when he ran by some 8-10 minutes ahead of me. I think Richard said he was playing it when he went by after me, too. I suppose that, except for those spectators standing around you, you could conceivably play the same song over and over in this sort of gig. Your audience only spends 15-30 seconds with you, so you could go a long way with a repertoire of two songs. :-)
By this time, I grabbed my last cup of gatorade, and poured one last cup of water over my head. Fortunately, I kept those two things straight, and didn't create a Jay Marmalade with sugar water in my hair. Mile 11 split: 7:42.
Mile 12: Reaching the end of the straightaway, I heard the same rock band fronted by a good woman singer from last year. She was blasting out Melissa Etheridge's "I'm The Only One" this year instead of AC/DC tunes, and she was good! That propelled me around the corner and along the river down to the bridges. Now there was no stopping for anymore water or fluids, since the race was almost done. I cut tangents as best as I could, and rolled along towards the bridge across the river. Once again, I was fooled by the first two bridges in line, thinking I was almost done, but I just kept running. My friendly caribbean steel drum band was there again, as well as more rock music to keep us going. The mile 12 marker was just before the bridge, and I really only checked quickly to make sure I had a shot at a PR. Hasty calculations showed I had a good shot if I kept blasting. Mile 12 split: 7:43. I was working harder now, but I felt like I had enough left for a final big push.
Mile 13: Turning onto the bridge and a very slight incline (exceedingly slight), I was up and over it before it even registered that there was an elevation change. I took advantage of the slight downhill bit after that, and rolled into mile 13. By now, I had eyes only for the signs along the side of the road. I was uncomfortable now, but that was because I had picked it up some more, and I was driving to the tape. 3/4 of a mile to go! More running, more passing. 1/2 mile to go! False finish overhead bridge went by. I heard my first AC/DC song of the day right about here, "You Shook Me All Night Long." It was a CD playing, but it was still inspiration enough. Crowds cheering. Finally, the overhead photographers' cranes and the 1/4 mile mark. With the grandstands on the right, I pushed very hard all the way to the finish line, which now was finally visible. Mile 13 split: 7:27. Driving to the tape, I crossed as the clock ticked 1:45:00. I was done! Last 0.1 miles: 0:46, 6:25/mile pace for the killer sprint.
The Stats: 1:43:30 finishing time. I finally beat that younger Jay's time from 1993, by some 34 seconds. Mission accomplished. Lifetime PR, Indy PR (improved 6 minutes from last year), I ran my race plan, and it worked great. I had a great finishing 5K (23:38, 7:35/mile pace), and my last miles were my fastest. It is always great to run past people at the end of a long hard race. Except for some erratic miles there on the Speedway, I did a good job of pacing. Now I just have to work on replacing the only race times from my younger days that exist as PR's: 5K, 8K, 10K, and 15K. All longer race PR's are all since I turned 40, and most of those were set in the last 8 months.
More Stats: Finished 2729/27642 overall, a nice improvement over last year. More numbers, you say? 2342/13305 among male finishers, 279/1672 in my age group, 388 of 14337 women finished ahead of me, the oldest woman finishing ahead of me was in the 50-59 yr age group (3 of 'em, in fact), and the oldest man finishing ahead of me was in the 65-69 yr age group (just one guy in that group).
A little delirious, I gathered myself and made my way through the finishing chutes. Medal, water bottle, grocery sack, tons of food. You just walk along and turn the corner, and just collect stuff for your goodie bag. Banana? Why, yes! Apple? Don't mind if I do. Big 'ol cookies? One of each kind, I think. Potato chips? A man needs his salt replenishment, right? Wandered over to gear trucks, but the line looked pretty long, so I went for a cooldown jog instead. With food bag in hand, I jogged along the first part of the course. Peeked for a bit into the piles of clothing on the side of the road, looking for my Decker shirt. That would have been funny to find it, but alas, I didn't see it. Now, I was cooling down pretty quickly, and I needed my clothes in my gear bag. Still jogging along, I circled the museum there, and found my way into the backside of the park and the Indy Runners tent. I found the rest of the guys, except for Richard, and we chattered a bit about the race and our times. After hanging out a bit more, I went back to the gear truck to see if the line had dwindled. No such luck. It was now three times as long of a wait. Okay. More jogging to see if I could find a random piece of clothing to warm up in until I could get my stuff, and by then they had scooped all of that up. Oh, well. Back around again to Indy Runners, where I found everyone again along with Richard. I was getting a bit cool by now, not dangerously so, but I really looked forward to a long-sleeved shirt. Richard decided to go with me to see about the gear again, and this time, the line was shorter, but still no picnic. One of the guys in line said that the 5K truck had some of our bags, so I went over there, and after 30 seconds, I finally had my gear. Bliss! Happiness!
Putting on a long sleeved t-shirt and long pants was almost a magical feeling. Ahhhhhhh! Richard and I walked back again along the canal there, avoiding the massive crowds in Military Park, and returned for the last time to the tent. Alex and Frank had disappeared and were gone for quite a while. I thought they might have gone back to the hotel. I mixed up my Endurox and drank that down, and gobbled down a bunch more of the food in my goodie bag as we stood there. Saw some of the Indy runners that I knew from previous years, and that was pretty fun. Alex and Frank returned after a while, and they had been at the beer garden "listening to the band." Yeah. As they decided to go back for "more music," Richard and I went back to the hotel. Jeff and Andy went over to see more of Jeff's Indy pals. Richard and I had a nice stroll back, enjoying the beautiful morning. It was still only about mid-50's by then, maybe low 60's, and by now it was almost 11:00. The runners were still pouring across the finishing line even then.
Once we got cleaned up, the group split up again. Frank and Alex went for pizza and beer at Bazbeaux's (downtown). Richard joined the Carolina boys and me for some historical touring of town (who knows? Maybe a couple of miles of walking there?), and then we went up to Broad Ripple, a trendy suburb, to meet Jeff's friend Mark at a brew pub. I had a really good Grand Cru there, and the five of us shared what can only be described as an overabundance of great fries as a snack. It looked like a witch's hat turned upside down on the table. It was called "L'Enorme," for good reason. :-) For the record, there were no fries left once we were done.
Fortified, we joined Mark for a post-snack walking tour up the Manon trail (it's a long paved trail that finds its way from downtown Indy all the way up north of town) and into the woods, down to the river. Who knows how long this walk was? I don't, but we were gone quite a while. I checked in with Alex via telephonic device, and apparently, I woke him up out of a monstrous nap. Perhaps it was a post-race coma? Frank was a little more coherent, and we told them where we'd be eating dinner so they could meet us there. More walking back to the brewpub, and we bid Mark adieu, and commenced yet another walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood. We made a grand loop of the neighborhoods surrounding Broad Ripple, and ended up back at our dinner location, the Union Jack Pub, exactly at the appointed time. I'm estimating that we walked at least 5 miles this afternoon after the race, and maybe closer to 7 miles. It was probably good for me, but I could tell I was getting tired by the end of that last long walk.
Alex and Frank arrived promptly, and we settled in for some serious food. Another Indy friend joined us for the feast, and we all had a frosty adult beverage to accompany the meal. I had a Black and Tan, which has become an Indy tradition for me, along with fish and chips (again, it's that tradition thing). Richard convinced me to try malt vinegar on the fish instead of ketchup, and I must admit that it was a nice change. That's what you get for having a Brit with you. The conversation was lively as we recounted our racing days. Alex destroyed his PR and got the coveted "First 500" special medal, Frank beat his existing Indy course record, you know about my race already, Richard had fun even though his lack of quality rest over the last few weeks got to him in the end, and Andy and Jeff both had good races. Jeff ran almost exactly the splits and final time from 2005, which was kind of spooky.
The Kentucky Derby was on and done while we sat, ate, drank, and talked. Some horse beat the other horses by a bunch. Yippee.
The meal complete, we waddled out of there, heavy laden with food. We piled into the Rent-Mobile and made our way back to the hotel...I guess it was around 7:00 or 8:00 by now? After a brief rest in the hotel, we headed out for our last appointment of the day, a late and final beer with Mark downtown across from Bazbeaux's. Frank and Alex had had enough for the day, and watched NASCAR instead. Richard joined Andy, Jeff and me for this last bit of the festivities. We enjoyed the lengthy assistance of our waiter, who joyfully toured us through the beer menu. There were maybe 50-80 selections, so it was a choice deal, you see. I ended up with a brown ale, quite good. The Carolina boys had a couple of interesting beers, and I think Richard did the Monte Python Holy Grail Ale (which was actually a pretty good beer, silly label excepted). We chatted with Mark for quite a while, and finally headed back to the hotel at "Dark:30." The walk to and from the bar was relaxing, and ended the day on a great note. After making plans for a morning recovery run with Richard, it was time to get some sleep.
All in all, a great day, a great race, and lots of fun with friends. What more can you ask?
Friday, May 05, 2006
EZ Indy Reconnaissance Running [Entered 5/8/06]
Friday, after a fabulous pizza fest last night here in Indy, Alex, Jeff (my guitar- and running friend from Charlotte), and I went out for a little jog along the Mini Indy course. The weather was, in a word, spectacular. Sunny with temps in the low 50's. For us Texas residents, it was unbelievably great. We even broke out the long-sleeved running shirts for the occasion. After a short walk from the hotel, we ran the first mile and a half of the course and the last 1.1 or so. It's especially important on the finishing mile to know where you are at Indy because of some "false finish" indications. There's a couple of spots where you're sure the finish is right ahead, only to be tortured by that false mirage. Anyway, with that little 2.4 miles of running down at a nice little 9:35/mile pace, we checked out the big park where the post-race festivities will be tomorrow, and found the meeting place at the Indy Runners club tent for after the race. With 35,000 registered runners, it's nightmarish if you don't have a really solid spot picked out to meet your friends and/or family.
After a huge breakfast at the hotel's complimentary buffet, we visited the Expo again to pick up some stuff (I got another garishly colored running shirt with the Indy logo on it, as well as some running shorts). Alex decided he'd like to nap, so Jeff, Andy (Andy is Jeff's friend from Charlotte, who has become a friend of mine), and I went for some sight-seeing in the afternoon. Richard and Frank arrived in mid-afternoon, and the three Gazelles made their own pre-race pasta plans downtown. The Carolina boys and I did our carbo-loading in the 'burbs, and we were ready to go.
Once we got back to the hotel, I dropped off the groceries to the Austin Gazelles, and hung out for a while watching TV. After that, it was time to get to sleep. We all had a big day ahead on Saturday!
Friday, after a fabulous pizza fest last night here in Indy, Alex, Jeff (my guitar- and running friend from Charlotte), and I went out for a little jog along the Mini Indy course. The weather was, in a word, spectacular. Sunny with temps in the low 50's. For us Texas residents, it was unbelievably great. We even broke out the long-sleeved running shirts for the occasion. After a short walk from the hotel, we ran the first mile and a half of the course and the last 1.1 or so. It's especially important on the finishing mile to know where you are at Indy because of some "false finish" indications. There's a couple of spots where you're sure the finish is right ahead, only to be tortured by that false mirage. Anyway, with that little 2.4 miles of running down at a nice little 9:35/mile pace, we checked out the big park where the post-race festivities will be tomorrow, and found the meeting place at the Indy Runners club tent for after the race. With 35,000 registered runners, it's nightmarish if you don't have a really solid spot picked out to meet your friends and/or family.
After a huge breakfast at the hotel's complimentary buffet, we visited the Expo again to pick up some stuff (I got another garishly colored running shirt with the Indy logo on it, as well as some running shorts). Alex decided he'd like to nap, so Jeff, Andy (Andy is Jeff's friend from Charlotte, who has become a friend of mine), and I went for some sight-seeing in the afternoon. Richard and Frank arrived in mid-afternoon, and the three Gazelles made their own pre-race pasta plans downtown. The Carolina boys and I did our carbo-loading in the 'burbs, and we were ready to go.
Once we got back to the hotel, I dropped off the groceries to the Austin Gazelles, and hung out for a while watching TV. After that, it was time to get to sleep. We all had a big day ahead on Saturday!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Fartleks [Entered 5/8/06]
Wednesday was the final run in Austin before the big Indy trip this weekend. Alex, Frank, Richard and I met up at RunTex for fartleks. Gilbert told us that 5 miles was plenty, with warmup and cooldown, and "no more than 10" x 1:00 accelerations during the run. It turned out to be quite the spiffy little run. We arbitrarily chose 15 minutes of warmup, mainly to avoid starting the first fartlek repeat on a hill. I know, wimpy, but what the heck! As is the custom, we took turns leading the way, but it seemed that Alex hung out at the front the whole day. I was happy to draft off of someone for the most part. The workout went by in a flurry, and we ended up with 5 miles total at an average running pace of 8:40/mile. Considering the warmup/cooldown was probably close to 3 miles, that meant that our fast bits were pretty quick. I felt fine throughout, and I guess I'm ready for a PR assault on Saturday. We did some striders once we finished, and then Alex and I stuck around for stretching. Once again, we hung out with our fellow Gazelles, who were returning from a 1000m repeat session on the track.
We got our last pre-race guidance from Gilbert, and that was it. My instructions are to "run how I feel" for the first 7 or 8 miles, then to pick it up on the Speedway and start passing people, and then at the 10 mile mark, I should "GO!" That's the sort of info that I like.
Off to Indy!
Wednesday was the final run in Austin before the big Indy trip this weekend. Alex, Frank, Richard and I met up at RunTex for fartleks. Gilbert told us that 5 miles was plenty, with warmup and cooldown, and "no more than 10" x 1:00 accelerations during the run. It turned out to be quite the spiffy little run. We arbitrarily chose 15 minutes of warmup, mainly to avoid starting the first fartlek repeat on a hill. I know, wimpy, but what the heck! As is the custom, we took turns leading the way, but it seemed that Alex hung out at the front the whole day. I was happy to draft off of someone for the most part. The workout went by in a flurry, and we ended up with 5 miles total at an average running pace of 8:40/mile. Considering the warmup/cooldown was probably close to 3 miles, that meant that our fast bits were pretty quick. I felt fine throughout, and I guess I'm ready for a PR assault on Saturday. We did some striders once we finished, and then Alex and I stuck around for stretching. Once again, we hung out with our fellow Gazelles, who were returning from a 1000m repeat session on the track.
We got our last pre-race guidance from Gilbert, and that was it. My instructions are to "run how I feel" for the first 7 or 8 miles, then to pick it up on the Speedway and start passing people, and then at the 10 mile mark, I should "GO!" That's the sort of info that I like.
Off to Indy!
Monday, May 01, 2006
3000 Meters @ HM Pace? [Entered 5/8/06]
Monday, we had our last major run before Indy, being sent over to Zilker Park for 3000m around the soccer fields at HM pace, or, as Gilbert said, "A little bit faster than HM pace." Okey dokey. Richard was able to join us, so we had Alex, Frank, Richard and myself for our tiny subgroup workout. Uneventful warmup and drills, and then without too much further preamble, we were off. Alex took off like a scared rabbit, Frank cruising next, and then Richard and I made up an actual groupetto of two. Richard and I figured our theoretical HM pace was 7:55/mile, so that was in our minds. However, I was surprised when we went through one mile in 7:10 or so. Faster, yes, but it didn't feel stupid fast. At least for 3000m, it wasn't stupid fast. :-)
I pulled away a little over the last 1000m, but it wasn't a big gap at the end for Richard and me. I clocked 12:58 for 3000m, or 6:58/mile overall pace. Way faster than any rational HM goal on Saturday, but it was nice to tune up the running machine this way.
The return jog was relaxing, and Alex and I stayed around for stretching afterwards. For the day, a brief 5.5 miles, all systems go. We got to see Shannon, Amy and some of the rest of the gang as they finished up their Circuit training, so that was fun. It's weird being on a different schedule than our pals, but that'll end soon enough.
Monday, we had our last major run before Indy, being sent over to Zilker Park for 3000m around the soccer fields at HM pace, or, as Gilbert said, "A little bit faster than HM pace." Okey dokey. Richard was able to join us, so we had Alex, Frank, Richard and myself for our tiny subgroup workout. Uneventful warmup and drills, and then without too much further preamble, we were off. Alex took off like a scared rabbit, Frank cruising next, and then Richard and I made up an actual groupetto of two. Richard and I figured our theoretical HM pace was 7:55/mile, so that was in our minds. However, I was surprised when we went through one mile in 7:10 or so. Faster, yes, but it didn't feel stupid fast. At least for 3000m, it wasn't stupid fast. :-)
I pulled away a little over the last 1000m, but it wasn't a big gap at the end for Richard and me. I clocked 12:58 for 3000m, or 6:58/mile overall pace. Way faster than any rational HM goal on Saturday, but it was nice to tune up the running machine this way.
The return jog was relaxing, and Alex and I stayed around for stretching afterwards. For the day, a brief 5.5 miles, all systems go. We got to see Shannon, Amy and some of the rest of the gang as they finished up their Circuit training, so that was fun. It's weird being on a different schedule than our pals, but that'll end soon enough.
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