Track 1000's [Entered 5/18/06]

Ah, yes, more track work! It was some good running weather today, with temps unexpectedly dropping into the high 50's. A big gang of runners joined today for our 2 1/2 lap adventures at Austin High. Something about doing 1000's on the track makes them seem lots harder than doing them at Zilker in a single loop, but I know it's the same distance.

Drills and such complete, it was time to get going. There were a bunch of other groups there this morning, but we didn't have much trouble doing our thing. My group was Jessica, Amy, Rachel, Emily and me. Rich, Brian and Shannon went on ahead, which was okay with me. I'm still sort of taking it easy (such as it is) on speedwork this week...or at least that's what my plan was.

Gilbert didn't really give us a time goal, except to say 10K pace. "10K pace" means something other than your current 10K pace, however. I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to be, but we decided to shoot for 4:30 for 1000m, or 7:10/mile pace. First repeat was almost perfect, and as we trotted the 200m recovery, we thought we were getting the 3:00 minute rest that we had last time we did this workout. Au, contraire! We got the 200m jog recovery and then we had to get going immediately. Well, this would be different! The recoveries were more like 1:40-1:45 for us today, making this quite a different workout.

The next two repeats were a little quicker, but still in that normal range for us. Gilbert noticed that we were enjoying things a little much, though, and yelled at us to go faster. Okay. That kicked up our pace for the last two repeats considerably, and I think the last repeat was a personal best for this workout.

Splits: 4:31, 4:26, 4:27, 4:19, 4:11. Overall repeat pace 4:22, or 7:03/mile pace. That's some 5 seconds faster per repeat than last time we did this workout in December, and 7 seconds/mile faster average pace! Of course, this means that next time, we have to start out quicker, but that's the idea, I think.

I did 3x200m striders after that on the track, with exaggerated form, and at times, I almost felt like I had the whole running form thing down. As soon as I thought about it, it went away, but for just a moment there...

I ran back to RunTex alone after I stopped for a bit to talk with Mac Allen, another ex-Galloway person. That cooldown run was quicker than usual, as a result, but still enjoyable.

Full stretching again once I got back, and another running day in the books. Total miles today 7.8.