Tempo Race & That Dream You Had When You Were In School...

Not the dream where you found yourself trapped in a sorority house on "Tickle Fight" night....that other dream, the one where you show up for class, and everyone is busily at work on a test that you didn't know about. :-) When I got to RunTex this morning, I stumbled out of my car, groggy, and made my way over to the meeting area. I saw Gilbert and Frank, but no one else. What up?! Turns out, coach called for a 5:45 am start time today, but I didn't get the memo. The other troops had already left for a 2 mile warmup for the tempo race, so Frank, Rachel, Shannon and I left when we could, to do just a one mile warmup. That wasn't nearly as useful for me, but it helped wake me up a little, anyway. The main gang had finished their drills when we got back, so the gang of late arrivers formed up and did our drills after the main gang. We watched them leave on their tempo race as we finished up our drills...it was sort of strange.

Anyway, our group of maybe 15 people toed the line some 5-7 minutes after the first group had gone, and after the usual instructions about the tempo race (go out easy, finish fast, negative split, "10K pace"), we were turned loose on the trail. I didn't feel great, so I vowed to go out and run a 32:00 tempo today. Thus, I started out dead last in the smaller group. In the first half mile, I managed to pick off 4 or 5 runners, and caught up to Rachel. We ran together to just past the one mile mark, and I started feeling better then. I picked it up from there, and pulled away from Rachel during mile 2. After that point, I didn't have any more Gazelles to chase, so I was running based on internal cues. Mile 2 was a nice pickup, and as I made the turnaround, I thought I might have a shot at 30:00 after all. I'd have to move along, but I could do it.

Miles 3 and 4 were sort of a blur, as I pressed the pace all the way to the tape, but I managed to put together a pretty respectable tempo race by the time I finished.

Splits: 8:00, 7:23, 7:20, 7:16. Final time 29:59, 7:30/mile pace. I was pleased with my progressively faster performance and big negative split. This was the third best tempo race for me, but the best in a while. I'll take it, on a warmer morning.

I knocked out 4 striders, and then Gilbert wanted us to join him for balance drills. I'm actually fairly proficient at those drills, so except for the fact that I still seemed to be out of breath from the tempo race, I enjoyed that part of the day.

Instead of stretching, I hung out and talked with Rich and Richard for a while, and then headed up to Gold's for the gym workout. For the day, just 6 miles, but some hard running in there!

Gym, Gym, Gym, Gym, Gym...

Today was core and upper body workout day at Gold's. I wandered in and launched into the core stuff before I could think too much about it. Floor exercises and the back/oblique raises on the "rack," and then a couple of rounds of Alex's medicine ball twists. I used the tiniest medicine ball today for Alex's twists, just 4 pounds, and I could handle 2 @ 45 seconds pretty easily, so I'll bump up to the next heavier ball next time. For upper body, I had a great day. For some reason, it felt comfortable to get 2 x 12 in bench at 85 lbs, which is a nice thing. On the other stuff (bicep curls, dumbbell chest flies, seated rows and tricep pulldowns), I cruised to higher reps and/or weights on most. Nice workout.

Tomorrow is an easy 5-7 miler in the 'Hood, followed by a gym visit. I get to sleep in, which will be great!