Long Running

This morning, on a relatively cool day, a small group of us took off for a 10 mile journey. Rachel, Emily, and Jan joined me in our little pack. Alex and Liliana ran off with the faster peeps ahead of us. We did the Grove loop, cutting it slightly short by turning off the trail at the First Street bridge. It was a very relaxing run, and it was fun to have Jan join us again after her running "vacation." That extension of the trail past Pleasant Valley is nice, and it was a relief to be running in such a quiet and tranquil place. We took a couple of water stops and still ended up with a nice final pace. I clocked 10.3 miles running all the way back to RunTex. It was right about 10.1 stopping at the Auditorium Shores water jugs. Final overall pace was 8:54/mile, and with water stop time, it drifted to 9:14/mile. Not bad for what felt like a pretty comfortable run!

The song stuck in my head this morning was "Baby, It's You," which I think was originally done by Dusty Springfield. The version I heard on my internal radio station was the cover by The Beatles. It's a great tune and all, but I just couldn't shake it out of my brain for the whole 10 miles. Sometimes I need to have a forceful talk with the DJ at KJAY FM. :-)

No striders today, as I had to hurry and join the stretching group. Most Gazelles were doing the Congress Avenue Mile today, so it was a small crew stretching away. It was fun to chat with Pete, getting caught up with him. It's the first time I've seen him since he finished third overall at the OK City Marathon a few weeks ago.

After we got done, we moseyed over to the Congress Avenue bridge to cheer on our fellow Gazelles. We walked over with Volel, and it was good to see him again. Amy ran in the 9:15 am heat, and afterwards swore that she'd never do that again. (She ran great, by the way). The 9:30 am heat featured most of our peeps, including Erine, Rich, Patrick, Frank, Brian and others. They all ran terrific races, finishing well under 6:00, and all of them said it was one of the hardest races they've ever run. None of them heard us screaming for them in the home stretch, due to tunnel vision and other sensory short-circuits.

After catching up with them and offering congratulations, it was time to call it a day. Big fun, and all I have to do now is finish my "cross-training" by completing the yard mowing that I started yesterday. :-)

For the week, back up to 31 miles, so I'm almost back on the Program. I hope to add the Tuesday recovery run next week, as well as the gym workouts. This greatly reduced May schedule has been fun and all, but it's time to get back to business. Summer is strength training season for me, building up the body for the start of Freescale/Austin Marathon training in September. Long runs in the 10-13 mile range, with an occasional visit to 15 miles, and it'll be time to push harder on the speedwork with slightly fewer reps than the fall marathoners.