Zilker Repeats, Warmed Over

For the first morning all year, it was noticeably warm and muggy today for our Gazelles workout. It was tolerable, at 75 degrees and very humid, but it's sure not as much fun as it was when we did this workout the last time. Most of my pace group was there this morning, with only Richard, Amy and Jennifer missing in action. Frank had a flat and missed, too. Alex joined us this week, shifting to Monday/Wednesday to accomodate a Saturday race date in Houston this weekend. The warmup run (hilarious to consider it a "warmup" run when we were warm just standing around...) was fine and dandy, and we took the new bridge/path under Barton Springs Road to get over to the workout site. I estimate 1.7 miles on the warmup, based on time. Drills and then it was time to go.

Gilbert grouped us up, and Rich graduated today to run with Alex and a new person who I did not know. Rich is Fast! I foolishly asked Gilbert how many repeats to do, and he said "you know what to do." Okay. Our "easy" first mile repeat on the rolling course was pretty quick, at 7:10. That's way faster than we usually begin. I'd like to blame someone for that, but we all participated in setting the pace, so I suppose we just have to accept it. :-) Two minutes rest, a cup of water (some splashed on my head), and we were off on lap two. We got quicker on that one, as we usually do, and nipped under the 7 minute barrier with a 6:59. The group was starting to spread out, but we all did the third repeat, and I finished with another 6:59 lap. I thought I was slowing down. Everyone pretty much was done by then, and Shannon and I tried to stop, but Gilbert just gave us a glare and waved us back on the course. She and I both backed off a touch, and I finished behind her on the fourth repeat at 7:10. A strangely symmetrical distribution of splits, eh? When we were done, Gilbert gave Shannon and I a "thumbs up," which meant a lot after forcing myself through that last repeat. Little bits of encouragement from Coach go a long way with all of us!

I don't like to have my last repeat slower, but today, my legs were pretty much cooked, and that's all I had. My average repeat pace was a couple seconds faster than 4 weeks ago, so that was good to see, especially with the weather conditions so much more favorable last time out. I looked back to last year at this time, and I did these repeats 27 seconds/mile faster than April 2005. That's really cool, to see a year over year comparison like that where you can directly track your improvement.

Shannon and I were well and truly done after that, and joined the rest of the gang for a relaxed run back to RunTex. It was really nice that a large group waited for us, and the company made for a much more pleasant return trip. Full stretching session later with Alex, Shannon and Rachel, and we were done with a tough workout day.

For the day, about 8 miles. My goal for the week is to do all the workouts, including the recovery runs and gym visits. I've backtracked a little over the last few weeks, and I need to nip that habit before it goes too much longer. Indy is just a few weeks away, and it would be dumb to waste some good training by slacking off now!