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.