Saturday, we met, in the rain, for a shorter, but hillier run. We started down at Porter Middle School (now the Ann Richards Academy for girls), and laughed a lot about how it seems that we have rain every time we do this route. It is true that last year, at exactly this same weekend, it rained on us pretty hard starting about halfway through the run.
Anyway, we got ourselves organized, and off we went. I ran with a fairly cohesive pack of maybe 10 folks for most of the day. I just tagged along, chatting with folks, until we got to the first water stop at about mile 3. It was there that I noticed that the formerly bulletproof Garmin 305 had somehow taken on water inside the faceplate. Could this be related to the progressively quieter alert beepers? A perforated speaker cone, perhaps? At any rate, the watch seemed to be working just fine, so I continued on. Our pace was nice and relaxed, in the 9:20-9:30/mile range for most of the run. My HR was in a good range, as well, for the first time in a long while on a long run.
The crew today? Renee, Leslie, Lisa, Marty, Brad, Jan, Brian, Collin, a new girl who I didn't meet, and probably someone else who I'm forgetting now. Brad took off by the first water stop, feeling good, so we didn't get to spend a lot of time running with him this morning.
We were having a lot of fun today, which seems to happen every time the rain comes. Goofiness ensues. We discussed a few vocabulary words ("anathema" and "penultimate") among many other topics. Who knows where this stuff comes from? After 6 miles or so of level to gently downhill running, we hit the streets leading to Wilke for the hilly finish to the run. I was feeling pretty good at that point, and started moving up in the pack a bit. After tanking up with Accelerade and water at the corner of Barton Skyway and Barton Hills Rd., it was time to tackle the "Lollipop" circle at the top of Barton Hills Rd. I always remember this as being tougher than it is, but even without the haze filter of memory, it does have a couple of testing hill climbs. I picked it up a little more in that portion of the trip.
At the water stop for the last time, I saw Alex and Ty briefly, who had apparently gone and done a couple of Wilke repeats just for fun in the middle of the run. Now that's a bit goofy! :-) One more helping of water, and I took off for the finish. I ran alone up Barton Skyway and then was happy to see that the road flattened out one hill before I thought it did (I think 3 hills, and there are really only two hills, but tough ones). A turn onto Lamar, and soon enough, I had found my way back to the finish. The rain had stopped by now, and it was actually pretty cool out for a change this late in the year.
We knocked out striders on the track, and then had a fun stretching session. It was a good running day. To add to the fun, Brian, Frank, Alex, Jan and Brad joined me at Kerbey Lane for a birthday breakfast! I had my first mimosa (who knew they were this good!), and we all were overserved with plates of breakfast delights. Nice! It's little things like that breakfast that remind me how lucky I am to have found the Gazelles, particularly those terrific friends. The running and training is almost secondary to the relationships with those folks who I've come to know so well. We traded lots of funny stories, which shall go unrecorded in these pages. A splendid time was had by all.
The stats, by the way: 10.35 miles, average running pace 9:13/mile (those last 3 miles were in the 8:10-8:40/mile range), and with water stop time, it drifted to 9:52/mile overall. 6 striders. Just right at 28 miles this week, too, since I skipped that one recovery run. Still, I scored a complete set of gym visits, and hit the bike on Friday. Another good week. Monday I get to do the Secret Hill workout, which I'm excited about. After all, you are not allowed to know where the Secret Hill is until you participate in that workout. Cool!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment