Here Comes The Sun [7 Recovery Miles]

This morning, a brisk 38 degrees out, I met up with Frank for our semi-regular Tuesday recovery run. We slept in this morning, and started at 6:00 instead of 5:45am. Okay, it was only 15 minutes, but there was a big difference to me waking up after 5:00 for a change! We had a great time touring the 7 mile loop around Town Lake, covering a wide variety of conversational topics. It was funny hearing about what his group discussed on their 22 miler Saturday. As we turned towards RunTex at the Mopac bridge (we ran counterclockwise today), it was really nice to see the city backlit with the rising sun and all the rainbow colors in the clouds and morning sky. We ended up with those 7 miles at 9:20/mile, including the short water stop at Mopac. A little faster than usual, but the run felt great, and since we were talking most of the way around, I think the pace was okay.

Once we got to Auditorium Shores, we knocked out 5 striders on the grass, and I didn't even hate them very much. Frank had to get going once we finished those, but I stuck around after changing into dry clothes and did most of the stretching routine with Shannon and Alex as they got there from their Meriden workout. It was truly nice out, just chilly once you stopped running.

From there, I went up to Gold's for a gym visit, munching a Power Bar on the way.

Clank, Clank, Clank

After some micro napping in the parking lot at Gold's (something about the warm sun in a closed car...), I forced myself into the gym to do my leg exercises. I did a bare minimum of core stuff, the floor exercises, and then launched into the full leg routine. I did all the leg exercises, maybe for the last time until after Freescale, and it was actually a lot of fun. Tomorrow, I'll go back for upper body and more core stuff, but I'll consider this one an Alex-like "Essential Exercise" visit and will call it a victory. Oh, yeah, there were a lot of new members there today at Gold's, so it will be interesting to see how many of them stick with it this year. I know I was one of those exact people last February, but now that I'm a regular, I have permission to make such observations. :-)