Circuitry

Today was sort of an optional Memorial Day workout for the Gazelles. Gilbert had arranged for one large circuit workout for any interested parties, ranging from the 6:00 am group to the 5:30 pm group. We ended up with over 20 people. Of my peeps, we had Emily, Rich, Shannon and Colleen. Marcy and Anne were there from the faster groups, among others. It was warm and humid (go figure), so warming up wasn't a big problem. Due to the Cap-Tex Triathlon downtown this morning, we parked at Austin High School, and did our warmup back and forth on the trail. I figure we went about a mile and a half, maybe a little more. I felt good, so I was glad to see that last week's full schedule didn't leave me in bad shape. Drills, and then it was time to go. Gilbert assigned our group to run 800's between each set of circuit exercises, and to run them "a little faster than usual." Whatever that means. :-)

I paired up with Emily, since the other people were running a little quicker than us. We did the usual circuit exercises, stepups, fence knee bends or "superman" jumps, crunches or leg raises, pushups, back raises, and lunges. With the slightly faster running, I really never fully recovered during any portion of the workout, but I suppose that's the idea. After the third set, Gilbert gathered us for 2 rounds of "fast feet," combined with the "Iyo Ngwe" call and response that made it go faster. I was drenched upon completion of all of that, but it was a good kind of feeling.

Before we lost our will, most of us hit the trail for 10 minutes of cooldown running, somewhere over a mile. I clocked pretty consistent splits on the 800's, by the way, at 3:39, 3:43, and 3:44, around 7:27/mile average pace. For the day, 4.6 miles.

Once we were done, I walked over to the edge of the triathlon bike course so I could cheer on my friend Mike. I did my stretching while I was waiting, and it turned out to be a fun time yelling and clapping for all the triathletes as they went by multiple times. Claire joined me for the cheering, as she had a friend or two in the field, too. I saw Mike all four of his laps, and saw a good number of other people that I've met through the Gazelles as well (Bob Janiak, Jerry, Carrie, and some other faces that I couldn't quite place with all that cycling gear on them). We had some fun yelling for a guy that was all dressed up in Lance regalia, calling him "Lance." He got the joke the second time around, and was looking for us the last two times. It was fun and maybe even inspiring to watch those folks work their way around 40K of cycling, but with a 10K run to finish up the day, I didn't envy them that much. I guess one day I'll have to try a Tri, just to check it off the list, but that time isn't yet here. :-) Mike finished fourth in his age group, by the way, so that's a good day's work!