Super Easy Running

Today was the traditional day-before-the-race cruise and stretching session (for tomorrow's IBM 10K Classic). A fairly small crew gathered up at 7:45 am and did just over 4 miles, nice and easy, on the trail. We came in just at 39:00, for a relaxed 9:30 or so per mile. We had some fun early playing tag with a Austin Fit training group who was using walk breaks, but passed them for good by the middle of mile 2. The AT&T marathoners not running IBM tomorrow ran Scenic, and the Chicago peeps did some sort of 14-15 miler, so we didn't see much of them except for them passing by us in the last miles of their trip.

After knocking out some striders, we had the stretching session, and that was enjoyable. The weather was pretty nice unless you were running (humidity rears its ugly head again), and it was very pleasant out there on the grass stretching out all those aches and pains.

After a little post-stretch chatting, it was time to get going. For the day, the aforementioned 4.16 miles.

Tomorrow's 10K race goals? Not sure. I'd like to come in under 8:00/mile pace, as a minimum goal. Since I've never really done much at this race, it would be nice to put together a strong finish tomorrow. Masters PR is 47:52, 7:42/mile. Lifetime PR (that 30 year old guy again) is 46:25, 7:25/mile. We'll see how it goes. I'm not as sharp as I'd like to be for this, but it will give me a good baseline effort for the start of marathon training.

Another Fall Tease?

This morning was just great! It was 62 degrees for our 7 mile recovery cruise, and that was a welcome change. I broke in my newest pair of Creations today, and just generally had fun. Brian, Alex, Frank, Rachel and Emily joined up for the trip, and it was a nice convivial journey. Alex used the word "phalanx" correctly in describing something, which was pretty funny. I had a delayed reaction to it, and caught up with him later to laugh about vocabulary and some commonly misspelled words. Okay, it doesn't sound like fun, maybe, if you have a grammar phobia that still remains from school days, but it was to us. :-)

Strides at Auditorium Shores finished off the running, and then Rachel, Alex and I did some stretching. Just a nice relaxing day of running...

After all that, I finally made my way back to the gym for essential leg exercises. The weight work on recovery run days really helps complete the recovery process, and I've been a slacker about the gym since late July. Ugggh. Anyway, I just popped in for the full leg exercise routine, and everything checked out just fine. If all goes well, I might just visit the gym tomorrow after the tempo race for upper body and core exercises. We'll see.

For the day, 7 miles, more or less, at 9:43/mile average pace, including a water stop of 1:40 at Mopac. It was another really good HR day, too, so that's a sign that we're doing these right.

Circuitry, Again [Start of AT&T training]

This morning, we kicked off the weekday training for AT&T, with a lot of new faces. The Chicago/fall marathon people were off on a 10 mile pace run, so it was sort of funny to adjust to the new group of people. Circuit training is a pretty traditional Intro To Gazelle-ing, and thus the AT&T people wandered over to AHS for circuit stuff. The rainy weather cut down the numbers a good bit, I think, but I'd say we had about 15-20 folks by the time we did our drills at AHS. It was good to see Jennifer back with us after her long bout with Achilles injury over the spring and summer. She was one of maybe 4 or 5 people that I knew already. I was able to get with a couple of the new guys after the warmup, telling them that the warmup run to wherever we were going was not a time to race. It doesn't help to try to win warmups. :-)

Bernard and Kenny were there to get us going, since Gilbert was tending to the pace runners. Those of us who were "veterans" got to go ahead and get started with our first 400m lap and circuit, while the new folks got instruction in what the circuit exercises actually are. I ended up doing most of my circuit laps on my own, just because it fell out that way. My laps were pretty consistent, at a modest 1:54/lap (7:40/mile), but I certainly wasn't pushing it too much. I did four circuits today, a new record for me. Of course, I tried to stop after three, but Gilbert was there by then, and when I asked him, he told me "No, you need the work!" and sent me back out there. I should have known. :-)

Anyway, after 4 drizzly circuits, Gilbert gathered us up for the fun 15/30/45/90 degree leg lift series, which happened during the heaviest rain of the morning. That was actually pretty funny, lying there with my legs a'trembling in the air, rain pelting my face as I tried to find my mental "happy place" to distract me from the legs and core. We finished up with 2 x 1:00 of fast feet. It was a good circuit workout, and it was fun to hear the new folks discuss it on the run back to RunTex.

My three new Gazelles that I think I can remember for next time are Patty, Braz, and Matt. We'll see if I can keep their names and faces in my memory.

On the way back, by the way, I got my first sighting of the Guy. The dude with the lycra tight shorts. In the rain and drizzle. Eeeeeeewwwwwww! Now I see what the fuss was about, not that I care to see the "fuss" again.

Full stretching afterwards under the shed, and I chatted with Lisa, Alex, Brian and Frank. The Chicago folks had a really soggy pace run.

For the day, 4.7 miles, and a decent start to the workout week. Tomorrow, I get to start breaking in my latest pair of Mizuno Creations. I think this is pair number 15. The old Mizunos get one more run (they were my "mud shoes" for today's workout, for instance), and then they're pretty much done, too.

Summer's Revenge [Scenic Long Run]

Man, as soon as I popped off about the gorgeous running weather on Thursday morning, Mother Nature got her revenge today. It was a full out 81 degrees at 6:00am, and it warmed to around 85 by the time we were done. Add that to the humidity, and it was probably the worst day of running conditions for a long run all year long.

Those of us starting AT&T marathon training today (that's the new title sponsor for the former Freescale Marathon) listened to Gilbert's introduction to the training, and then he let the "veterans" get started while the new folks got a chance to ask questions. We had Sue, Colleen, Rachel, Emily, Amy, Wayne, Javier, Richard and me in our little group. I had intended to do Bonnell today, but the late start and the poor conditions caused me to rethink things. We decided on a pure Scenic loop instead.

The initial miles were pretty comfortable, and I got a chance to chat with Richard a good bit. We hit the first water/Powerade stop at about the 4 mile mark, and I took that chance to do a GU. It was obvious that the heat was taking a toll, but we still felt okay as a group. As we moved on into the Scenic hills, I just hung out and let other folks set the pace. It's a little easier to let the group pull you along. Richard and Emily dropped back somewhere in there, and I guess they took a different path home. The rest of us grabbed a drink of water at the dry cleaners, and we were off again. I probably should have taken another GU there, but it was only a couple miles since the first stop, and that seemed too soon.

Up 35th, and then onto Exposition. We saw a group of Gazelles there on Exposition, coming our way, many of whom were new folks. Jennifer was back with that group of Gazelles today, after her long return from injury, and she was obviously a happy girl to be running again. Going down Exposition, I started dragging a little, but hung close enough to everyone else to finish at the last water/Powerade stop with them. After that refreshment stop it was time to get finished.

We picked it up a little more on that last stretch, but by now, I was falling back a little more, at least inside my own head. Exposition was well-paced, but now I didn't have much snap left. Heat is not my friend. That skipped GU may have given me a much-needed boost, but who knows for sure? At any rate, we zipped through the Mopac bridge, and I was left chasing Rachel, Javier and Wayne for our modest "fast finish." I eventually caught up with and passed Javier, but Rachel and Wayne were loooonnnggg gone. Turning after the footbridge with a mile to go, I sort of unplugged for a bit, and had to shift to a shuffle for a hundred yards or so, until I got a second wind. That hasn't happened to me in quite a while.

Still, once I finished, it had turned out to be a decent effort, all things considered.

The stats: 10:18, 9:30, 9:26, 0.93 miles at 9:05/mile pace, 1:50 Powerade/water/GU stop, then 9:03, 9:02, and 0.13 miles at 8:30/mile (once the hills leveled out a bit), 2:24 water stop at the dry cleaners, then 9:01, and 1.08 miles at 8:47/mile (a red light stop actually added some to our pace there), last water stop at 1:51, then 8:25, 8:21, my "unplugged" mile at 9:18, and then 0.20 miles at 8:27/mile pace. Overall, 11.4 miles at 9:34/mile, including all water stop time. Actual running pace was 9:02/mile, which was decent. HR was a little higher than usual for this run, which is totally attributable to the heat and humidity.

I did some striders after I retrieved my stretching gear, and that helped put some spring back in my legs. The full stretching did some good as well.

Some brief chatting with folks after we were done (Brad, Jan, Brian, Alex), and it was time to take a roundabout way back home since most of the streets were filled with some sort of parade and the buses waiting to ferry people to the ACL Festival. What a mess!

For the week, I was back up to a reasonably good 35 miles.

Has Fall Fell?

This morning was pretty spectacular. Temps were around 63 degrees, and even with the humidity, it was wonderful weather for a nice and easy 7 miler. Brian, Emily, Alex, Frank and I hit the trail at 5:50am for a relaxed recovery effort on the I-35 loop. We took it pretty easy, and ended up with about 7 miles at something around 9:45/mile pace. That includes a water break at Mopac. Actual running pace was 9:30-ish. I set a new record for low average HR for a recovery run, which was great to see. This is how these sorts of runs should be. When it's been so warm out, the HR is artificially elevated due to the increased workload imposed on the body trying to throw off all that heat. With the almost spring-like weather, our bodies were much more efficient machines.

Interesting to me was the discussion about our HR ranges. Frank runs low, while Alex and I have higher peak HR numbers. Emily has a really low morning HR. Brian is somewhere in between all those. That doesn't mean a higher peak HR number is good or better, it just goes to show that you really need to know what your HR range is before you can make any useful sense out of HR data.

Afterwards, we knocked out some striders and then I got some stretching in, talking to Pete.

It was a relaxing and fun workout today. Saturday is the first official day of Austin Marathon training, so that'll be interesting to meet some new people. By the way, at this point, even after all my grumpiness about the new AT&T Austin course, I'm planning on running here in 2007. Hopefully, I can PR even with the new tougher course. To dip my marathon time down significantly, though, I'll have to run a different race in late 2007 or in 2008. I'll use the 2007 Austin race as a modest PR run. It will require some smart race planning, but surely I can do that? I dread having to train for a fall marathon in 2007, but it looks like I'll have to do that in order to get on a faster course.

1000's

It was a welcome nice morning today. Even the humidity was a little lower than usual, and the temps were around 71 or 72. For us, it felt like a crisp spring day. Elsewhere in the country, it might be considered oppressive. Perspective, huh?

Anyway, we rolled over to AHS for the track 1000m repeats. There was a pretty big crowd of various training entities there, so we did our drills in a narrow two lane span on the far side of the track. We didn't collide with any of the other groups, so we must have done okay. Gilbert told the Chicago people to do 8x1000m, and held us non-Chicago peeps to 5x1000m. I gathered a crowd of about 10 people, and we just took off on the first repeat while Gilbert was still getting the other groups organized. No sense waiting when we knew who our group was. Since I was only going 5 repeats, I figured I would help the Chicago people out by leading the way on pacing. It was still a bit dark on our first repeat, so I was a little slow on the first 400, and overcompensated on the last 600 to get us around at or under 4:30, our target interval. The next three intervals were right on the money, and were evenly paced, so I did my job pretty well. Brian helped out on the third interval. On the fifth interval, I told them I was done, and blasted away with Mark to "run how we feel." I guess I felt pretty quick, because I got a new PB on the last 1000m.

Splits: 4:26, 4:28, 4:30, 4:29, 4:09. Average lap 4:24.5, 7:05/mile pace. That's not a PB for average pace, but it was a nice set of speedwork. I was happy with how I did today, that's for sure. I know I could have done more at that 4:26-4:30 pace range, so that's also a good thing to take from today's efforts.

Mark, Rachel and I did our prescribed 3x200m striders on the track, and then we went to the fence to knock out our 100 situps. I managed 85, but they were in sets of 30, 20, 15, 10, 10.

The cooldown run with Rachel was quite relaxing, and it finished off a good day at the running office. Full stretching routine with Alex and Lisa, and I called it a day. It was another day of experimentation with the whole post-run food deal, too. Again, I had a yogurt while I was in the early stages of the stretching. We'll see how that works over time.

For the day, 7.2 miles. So far, so good this week.

Austin Marathon Route Reconnaissance

This afternoon, armed with better information about the proposed new Austin Marathon route, I set out to drive some of the new course. The route that we took on Saturday wasn't totally accurate, and I wanted to check out the correct course to see if it was any better. I based this on the verbal description on the RunTex website.

I joined the route at Enfield and Pecos. The Galloway Scenic route came down Pecos, so I knew the hills on Pecos, just backwards from the way they will go in February. So far, not too bad. Pecos has gently rolling hills, but nothing awful. A fairly flat trip across Windsor dumps back out on Exposition. We will have to negotiate the bad parts of Exposition, but again, they should be okay if we pace ourselves properly. We've certainly run them enough.

The rollercoaster drop down 35th will be a challenge to quads, but it IS a downhill, so we should be grateful for that. The first nasty hill on Balcones is still in the course, and it's tough, but maybe with training we can handle it on race day? The course turns off onto Edgemont after just a half mile or so on Balcones, so in training, we'll be able to avoid the parts of Balcones that feature heavy traffic. Edgemont still basically makes the same rise as Balcones, but at a more moderate rate. There's even some decent downhill running in there, before a pretty tough hill at the very end of Edgemont that continues all the way up to Balcones again. From there, the course is pretty decent. Very slight uphill to flat running on Shoal Creek, Great Northern, and then flat to modest downhill trends for most of the rest of the course. There's a handful of hills in there, but nothing too terrible. For instance, there is a nasty little hill on 38th right before Duval, but by then, we'll be running on autopilot anyway. :-) I only drove as far as Duval and 38th Street, but from there, it's a nice downhill run almost to the end of the race, using the same 2 or 3 miles that we've run so many times before. We will have a tough triple decker hill right during mile 26, just to the East of the Capitol, but for the most part, the last half of the race is built for decent running.

After this scouting drive, I'll keep my options open for the marathon here. The new course will require some good pacing and strategy to run it well, but there's enough flat to downhill running on it that it may be a decent course after all. I'll just have to really back off on the steepest hills on race day, and be patient about catching back up to Goal Pace, whatever that number will be in February.

Circuitry [Entered 9/12/06]

Monday, a very small crew met up at RunTex for the day's workout. The weather wasn't particularly threatening, but it was humid and warm as usual. Gilbert sent us over to Austin High the "long way," which was actually a good idea. The extra mile or so going that way helped loosen up our legs. When we got to the track, we didn't do drills, but launched pretty directly into 1600 meters of short 50 meter accelerations followed by 50 meters of slower running. Even with all that erratic pacing, we turned in a surprisingly solid 7:59/mile pace for that warmup track work. From there, it was the usual circuit stuff. Gilbert only called for two circuits of exercises, so we were done pretty quickly. My 400m laps between circuits were pretty slowly done, but what the heck. There's a time for fast 400's, and today wasn't it.

After those two circuits, Gilbert gathered us on the slab of infinite aerobic torture (the concrete slab behind one of the goalposts) for "fun stuff." We did some one-legged hopping, some balance drills, the dreaded starting blocks drill, and finished us off with a 2:00 fast feet episode. With the Iyo Ngwe chanting, the fast feet went by pretty quickly. Still, we were pretty much done when we were finished.

Most of us took the long way back to RunTex, which was more briskly paced than the warmup trip. It was fun, anyway.

I hung out afterwards for most of the full stretching ritual with Alex, and then my day was done.

For the day, right at 7 miles. Now, my main task for the rest of the week is to get back on schedule. This is a good start.

Hilly Long Running [Entered 9/12/06]

What's up with my tardy blogging? I guess I'd know the answer to that more than you, huh?

Anyway, last Saturday, on a fairly moderate temperature day, but with super humidity, a smaller group of us gathered at the park off of Rbt. E. Lee Dr. for a 14 miler. The Chicago people had started at 5:30am for 20-22 miles, but we figured we could start later for our shorter run. I modified a suggested route to come up with our 14 miles, hoping to find water/Powerade support as a result.

We had a pretty good crew for the first part of the journey. Liliana, Diana, Patrick, Emily, Sally, "the Other Emily," Colleen, Wayne and maybe some others headed out at 6:00am for the day's journey. We did a pretty good job of pacing, and took our first quick fluids stop at the cooler I had dropped at O. Henry. Soon enough, we were headed up Exposition and all those rolling hills. We were using this route because we had been told it was the new Austin Marathon route, and wanted to get a preview of this hilly portion of the new course. It was certainly rolling, rolling, rolling up to 35th Street, and then we roared down the steep downhill on 35th to the dry cleaners at Pecos and 35th. So far, so good. We grabbed water there, and I took a GU. To the big hills on Balcones!

The course turned evil on Balcones, and was actually sort of dangerous running up the hills there with the occasional car careening down Balcones coming towards us. We huffed and puffed, and made it through a series of really nasty hills, much like climbing Bonnell, but higher. This part will be tough in the marathon...miles 10-12 or so. I was quite discouraged at how tough the new course is appearing thus far. By the time we got through the hills, I turned around and there were just four of us remaining. The others had turned around at about the 6 mile mark for an even 12 mile day. So, Wayne, Colleen, Diana and I rolled through the much easier stretch across Hancock and down Shoal Creek to our planned water stop at Shoal Creek and 38th Street. I was worried that Gilbert would have moved the coolers by the time we got there, and lo and behold, I was a prophet. :-) I had brought my CamelBak, so I had water, but the other three were a bit parched. As we stopped on 38th, I dashed across to the Randall's and purchased water and Powerade. Such a nice guy, huh? That turned out to be quite a long stop as a result. Oh, well.

Refreshed, we headed home. Up and over Mopac, then down the rolling hills of Exposition, and finally we grabbed more Powerade at my cooler at O. Henry. From there, it was about 2.5 miles to the finish. We picked it up a little for the last few miles, and stayed together in a nice little pack.

All things considered, it was uneventful, but a solid run for strength. We'll certainly be ready for the start of Austin training next weekend. I did 4 striders, which helped loosen me up. Full stretching followed for those of us who didn't go 20-22 miles. A good day, but I must admit I was really bummed about the new marathon course. Enough so that I'm seriously thinking of running another marathon in January/February other than Austin. I'd hate to waste my single yearly marathon effort on a course that seems designed to frustrate a PR attempt. I am trying to keep an open mind, but right now, I'm not too enthused about the course as it's been presented to us.

Splits: 9:45, 9:41, 0.44 miles at 9:45, water stop 1:52, then 9:39, 9:35, 2:33 water stop (dry cleaners), 9:41 (Balcones), 9:17, 9:06, 9:12 0.31 miles at 8:49/mile, 8:09 water stop (Randall's shopping trip), then 9:15, 9:08, 0.62 miles at 8:42/mile, 1:24 last Powerade stop, then 8:41, 8:34, and 0.45 miles at 8:31/mile. Total miles 13.89 at average running pace of 9:15/mile. With the long water stop time included, it drifted to 10:15/mile.

Pace Runnin'

Monday, it was a very small group who met at RunTex at 6:00am for the scheduled 10 mile pace run. There was confusion about the start time, more on that later. It was just Alex, Jan, Brad, me and ... aaaaggghhh! I can't remember the fifth person. Hopefully, it'll come to me. The drill for today was to do a full warmup as if we were racing, then go out and run the 10 mile loop pretty hard. It's supposed to be at "marathon race pace," but that means something else for Gilbert and our training. Since I'm behind on these, and I don't have a fall marathon, I was going to run a pace loop of just over 7 miles. I got only fitful sleep last night, again, so I was sort of out of it, but I figured I'd see what happened with the run anyway.

The warmup was nice and comfortable, and we saw Leslie coming the other way from Barton Springs while we were out there. After our leisurely 1.7 miles, I did a few strides to further loosen up, while the Chicago folks did the full drills. About this time, we saw a pretty good group of folks heading out for their warmup. They thought it was a 6:30am start time for warmups, followed by a 7:00am start for the pace run. Gilbert and Bernard had mixed up their times, with some help from us on Saturday. No big deal, really, but it caused some hard feelings with some folks.

Those of us ready to go at 6:30 am lined up at the marker, and we were off. Brian joined us after a very brief warmup, so we had a decent sized group, mostly in the same pace demographic. Alex tore off immediately, as he should, and Brad followed fairly close on his heels. The rest of us didn't spread out much. I hung out with the main pack for the first couple of miles, but after checking our mile two split, I decided to move on ahead myself. From that point on, I was running alone.

I settled into a nice pace, running by feel, and made just the briefest water stop (a NASCAR "Splash and Go" at Holly) before skirting the softball complex and finally arriving at the official Powerade stop at I-35. I took a little longer there, making sure to get plenty of Powerade, and then I moved into the homestretch of my shorter run. Making good time, I spun up the ramp at Pfluger bridge and then raced pretty well to the "tape" at the Zero marker. After a quick cup of water there, I did another victory lap of Auditorium Shores just to help my body come down from the quicker running.

My numbers for the actual pace run: 8:56, 8:28, then I pulled away on my own for 7:58, and 0.65 miles at 8:05/mile pace. Quick 12 second stop there, and then 7:54 and 0.37 miles at 7:50/mile pace. Full Powerade stop in 0:55, then 7:57, 8:02, and 0.37 mile finish at 7:23/mile pace. That was 7.4 miles of pace running at 8:17/mile pace, including water stop time. Way better than a couple of weeks ago, and it made me pretty happy. Actual running pace was 8:08/mile, also pretty good for me.

I did 1.72 miles of warmup running and that 0.67 mile victory lap, as well as 6xStriders. Total mileage for the morning was a respectable 10.1 miles.

It seems like everyone had a good run this morning, so spirits were high as we finished off the post-run work. With the holiday, we even had a full stretching session, and Alex, Frank, Jan, Brad, Pete, and Brian joined me for that. It was a nice morning, fairly cool (or at least cooler than it has been), and there were smiles all around.

I declined the kind and tempting invitation to go to Magnolia Grill for breakfast nirvana, and headed home. After last week's terrible workout compliance, I score today as a full out "A."

Grove Loop [Entered 9/4/06]

Saturday morning, way too soon after last night's race effort, we gathered at RunTex for a nice relaxing run on the Grove loop. We got to sleep in for the 6:00am start, but I was still a little short on sleep. I just couldn't settle down last night after the race. Oh, well. I was also a couple of pounds lighter this morning than on Friday morning, due mostly to last night's race, I expect. Knowing that, I'd keep close tabs on how I felt to make sure I didn't outrun my body's ability to cope.

It was a pretty small crew who showed up today, mostly due to last night's race, I guess. Plus, this was a "recovery" long run, so therefore theoretically not quite as important as most long runs. I decided early that I'd follow along with the pace set by others as much as I could, and I'd decide on my distance as we got close to the various bridges. Off we went.

It was a leisurely start, and I settled in with Brian, Brad, Jan, guest runner Alex, Emily and Rachel. Renee was there as well, with Jennifer and some other folks. Most of my regular non-Chicago group was absent today. We rolled along and after a couple of miles, we had established a consistent pace in the 9:05/mile range. It was almost metronomic. The weather was slightly more hospitable than usual, and that helped everyone relax into the workout. About 4.5 miles into the run, we reached the Powerade/water stop over at ACC, and we all tanked up. I even took my one GU, just because I had it with me. Given the number of people who seemed to be around our pace, it took a while to get finished with the water stop, but we got going before we had to start paying rent on that space on the sidewalk. :-)

I sprang a bunch of songs on the group today, trying to find ones that would stick like glue to their brains. After that first water stop, I tossed out Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" and "Fire," and in a particularly cruel move, I even suggested Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me," which has the immortal lyric, "I had a dream, I had an awesome dream!" I can still hear the groans when I put that song up for their perusal. :-)

Emily decided that she needed to move a little faster, due to a plane reservation, so she scooted on ahead. Rachel and I stayed together with the other folks. We took another quick stop at Holly Power plant, and then did another couple of miles to the Official Powerade/Water stop just past I-35. By now, we were moving nicely, but Rachel and I were feeling the dead legs that were left over from last night's race. It was going to be a 10 mile day for us.

Alex had had enough of the evil songs, so he moved on ahead as well, and Rachel and I made the turn to cross over at First Street bridge. Rachel went directly to the water coolers, but I was feeling better, so I continued on with a nice little victory lap around Auditorium Shores to boost my mileage just a little. Done.

The numbers: 10.6 miles, 9:14/mile running pace, 9:51/mile with water stop time. Better than last week and the week before, and I think that's mostly due to more favorable weather conditions.

I knocked out 6 striders, which felt pretty good after the first one, and waited on the Chicago folks to finish their 13.5 mile full loop. They came in pretty soon after, and we all had fun doing the stretching routine. It was pretty nice out there once we were done, but I'm sure it was still in the 80's. It's all relative, I guess.

I got persuaded to join Brian, Jan, Alex, Frank and Brad for another cold soak at Barton Springs, and that was wonderful, as usual. That water is COLD when you first hop in, but after that initial shock, it does magic stuff for your legs. We always feel nice and refreshed once we've soaked away for 20-30 minutes there. We saw Christine, Rich and Banjo again, and commiserated with Rich about his newly diagnosed stress fracture. He's got 4 more weeks of aqua running before they let him hit the road again. Today, he did a 2.5 hour aqua jog, and he didn't even go crazy! That's amazing, I'd say.

Anyway, that was the day. We've just got a couple of weeks until the official start of Austin Marathon training, so I plan to enjoy things until then.

Fila Relays [Entered 9/3/06]

Friday night, after a really slack week of [non-]exercise, I made my way in afternoon traffic to Zilker Park for the Fila 4 x 2.5 mile Relays. What were we thinking!? My car thermometer reported a temperature of 105 as I drove down in the bumper to bumper crush, and I was already pretty nervous. I had done a good job of hydration all afternoon, and finished off a glass of Powerade on the way down, so I had done all I could, but I was still antsy.

I parked near the tennis courts on the north side of Town Lake, and grabbed a water bottle, along with my driver's license (more on that later), and jogged gently over to the soccer fields where the race would circle. It wasn't a problem getting "warmed up," that's for sure! Still, the humidity was really low, so it was fairly tolerable, all things considered. Some of my fear went away...but not all.

I found the Gazelles' tents without too much trouble, and chatted with everyone as I waited on Frank, Jan and Brad to arrive. They had parked at Brad's house, which was nearby. I didn't have long to wait, and after signing my life away on the waiver, Frank got our race chips for us. There were a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, and we were all just laughing about how crazy we must be to be there in conditions like this. It made it easier to deal with the race, knowing that so many of our friends were dealing with the same thing.

Jan set out for her warmup with Brad, and I stashed my driver's license in my t-shirt up in the "rafters" of the tent. The race was supposed to start at 6:30pm, and I was the second leg, so I figured I'd start my warmup about 10 minutes before the race start. On schedule, after telling Jan I'd be there for her when she finished, I set out for a nice easy warmup. I made a big circle of Zilker Park, going backwards as the course was set up, figuring I'd see the runners as they roared into the first leg of the race. Not so. Turns out, by the time I finished up my easy warmup and my striders, the race hadn't even started yet. Oh, well.

They finally sent everyone off at 6:50, so with that in mind, I went off with Richard and Ward for a couple more striders to finish off my warmup. We took a break to cheer on the runners as they stormed by, Gilbert in the lead, and then knocked out the last couple of strides. Richard and Ward were both running the second leg, as I was, so we found the proper corral and waited our turn at this deal. They had music playing on the loudspeakers, so it wasn't easy to hear the announcements of the incoming relay team numbers, but I made my relay handoff with Jan without difficulty. It was time to run!

I had checked out the course on paper while hanging out at the Gazelles tent, so I had a vague idea of what was ahead of me. I had resolved to "run how I feel," making sure I didn't blow up and have to walk in on this short race. The initial part of the course was very familiar from running 2000m repeats here so many times, so I was comfortable with my course knowledge to start with. I also decided that my only real focus would be to count the people that I passed, and also totalling those who were able to pass me. Something to take my mind off the stress of running, right?

Anyway, down the short hill and then into the setting sun, I eased into a running gear. My legs felt like rubber initially, just like at the Silicon Labs marathon relay on July 4th, so I didn't panic, and settled into a solid pace. We turned up the nice little hill to the turnaround point at Barton Springs Road, and I tried to enjoy the shady part of the course. Coming back down the hill, the trusty GPS told me I had covered the first mile, so I had some idea of where I was in the run. I passed a woman pushing a stroller at that water stop (I skipped that stop), and was up to 13 people passed, with two people having passed me. So far, so good.

The second mile featured a long, steady but modest incline through and around the Nature Park. I shifted into hill climbing gear, taking shorter steps, and was still passing a lot of folks through here. I got caught by two other guys on that stretch, but I caught a bunch of folks myself. As we reached the last water stop at Barton Springs Rd, I grabbed a cup to drop over my head, and continued motoring along. I felt a little beaten up by then, but the peer pressure of the team event kept me going.

I pushed up the hill on Barton Springs, catching a bunch more folks, and finally crested that bad boy. That was a huge relief. From that point, I knew the course was a downhill work of art, so the mental stresses went right away for the most part. My totals were at 23 people passed, and 5 guys had caught and passed me. I focused on the work at hand, and pushed hard down the hill, catching 3 last people before I entered Zilker Park for the last time. I roared around that last corner, and enjoyed the last bit of downhill running. Well, I enjoyed it as much as you can enjoy something that's causing you to suck down oxygen like that race was doing. Gilbert was there about 200 yards from the finish, yelling at me to push hard to the finish, so, obedient as always, I kicked down into my best gear, and pushed all the way to the tape. I had no problems hooking up with Brad, and my work was done. God, that was hard!

I was struggling to catch my breath as I strolled out of the handoff zone, but it was sure nice to be done with that run! My numbers were 7:18, 7:40, and .4 miles in 2:37 (6:32/mile pace). The leg was supposed to be 2.44 miles, so I might be cheating myself a few seconds per mile, but what the heck. 7:20/mile average pace was well off my current 5K PR pace, but given the conditions, I'll take it.

My throat felt like I had ingested a couple of bugs or some dirt clods. It must have been the dust or afternoon debris in the air, but we all felt like we had something caught in our throats. I drank a bunch of water after the race, but it didn't seem to help all that much.

Once I was done, I checked in with friends and foes, and we were all glad to be finished. I saw Bernard roll across the finish line, capturing first place for Gilbert's team, and then Brad finished our third leg and handed off to Frank. I grabbed Brian, and he was nice enough to accompany me for a nice easy cooldown jog. That really helped me, for sure. We cruised through Zilker, and ended up near the top of the last hill, where we could watch our teams finish up. It was fun to cheer people on, now that they had just the downhill finish ahead of them. We saw Thon, Frank and Rachel zoom by, and then we jogged back through Zilker, talking about music as we made our way back to the main race compound.

After congratulating everyone we saw, including a very happy Alex (he smoked his leg of the race in a big way!), it was time to grab that free cup of beer that was awaiting us. Grabbing my driver's license (see, there was a reason for bringing it!), I went to the beer garden and enjoyed a very frosty Shiner Bock draft. It was a hefty 16 oz of beer, and it went down very nicely. Rachel, Brian, Alex and I finished off the beers, and we were quite happy indeed. Not goofy, but pleasantly relaxed.

We laughed a lot about knowing that we had a long run that was starting in less than 12 hours, but figured we could always just run nice and easy if we got in trouble. Rachel, Brian and I walked over to our cars, in the dark, on the trail, which was pretty surreal. What a day!

I got home about 9:30, and gobbled some food, along with a bunch of water and such things, trying to fix myself up for the long run on Saturday. After all the sweat output in the heat, I'd be a little low on fluids in the morning, but surely it would be okay?

We finished 10th in our division, by the way, just ahead of another Gazelles team (Brian, Emily, Amy and Rachel). Gazelles swept all but one category first place positions, so it was a good day for the herd!