Warp Speed, Captain!

Today was the very tough mile repeat workout at Zilker Park. Many Gazelles pick this as their least favorite / hardest workout in the Gazelles canon. It is a tester, that's for sure, but for some reason, I don't dread this one near as much as Wilke or even the tempo race. You know you've worked hard after this one, that's for sure. At least the weather was great, again. It won't last, but it was another nice morning in the high 60's.

It was a smaller crew today, but most of my peeps were there. The warmup run was an actual warmup pace, and that helped start the day off well. Alex ran with us for the first mile or so before he peeled off on his recovery run. Drills were fine, and I actually felt warmed up as we got a drink of water. After yesterday's leg weights and the delayed onset from the circuit on Monday, my legs felt heavy this morning, and it took longer than normal to have them settle into the day.

Gilbert grouped us up, and told us that he didn't want us to go too hard today, warning us that he wants us to average 2 seconds faster per repeat the next time we do this workout. I was surrounded by something like 10 runners for my pace pod, including Brian, Emily, Mitchell, Jennifer, Jessica, Lisa, Brad, new guy Gabe and others hither and yon. They let me set the pace on the first repeat, and we cruised that one in a nice smooth pace. 2 minutes rest, and we hit the second repeat. Brian and Gabe led the second repeat, and even though we picked up the pace, it didn't feel all that much tougher. Great! Another quick rest, and it was time for number three. Again, I let the others set the pace, and it turns out we picked it up yet again. That one felt like a harder effort, but still not too bad. When I reported the numbers to Gilbert after number 3, he told us that four would be enough, and although he frowned at the fact that we were speeding up like we did, he said that we should all run the last one hard. I think he figured we'd all blow up or run slower. I started out leading the pack up the hill to the halfway point, but Brian and Gabe soon passed me. I was working pretty darned hard, but I didn't think it was crazy fast or anything. I tried to keep close to Brian and Gabe as we rolled to the finish. Brad caught me in the last quarter mile, along with Mitchell. We all gathered speed together all the way to the tape, and were very happy to be finished.

The numbers? 7:32, 7:18, 7:06, 6:34. Our average mile was 7:07, not a personal record for this workout. However, that last mile at 6:34 was a personal mile repeat best by almost 20 seconds! I was truly surprised to see those numbers. The nice weather was part of the reason for the good running today, but that's still pretty cool to see.

My HR data was really great, too. I didn't get into the screaming HR zone until the last repeat, and my recovery between repeats was substantial. I'm very pleased with how things seem to be going.

The cooldown run was with Frank, and we had fun chatting away as we ran back. We were quicker running home (8:33 pace versus the 9:32 warmup pace), but it still felt just fine after the stress of the mile repeats.

I did the full stretching routine afterwards with Mitchell, and that was the running day. Total miles today were 7.8. Time to go to the gym...

I Want to Pump...You Up!

An easy drive up to Gold's, and it was time to knock out a workout. Core and Upper body. It was back rack torture day, among other core exercises. I was feeling pretty spry, though. Maybe I'm actually improving? Upper body stuff was more of the same. I moved up to 60 lbs on the second set of bicep curls (that's a 60 lb barbell, not 60 in each hand :-), which was, uh, interesting. I muddled through 8 reps at that weight. On bench, I kept the 85 lbs / 95 lbs first and second set pattern. For all the arm exercises today, I really had to grit it out for the last rep or two on second sets. Still, all things considered, it was a very solid workout. Like I've said before, this is the hardest workout day, going from usually tough speedwork on Wednesday to a gym workout. From here on, it gets easier.