Slippery Mile Repeats

This morning was very humid, misting, with slick roads on the rolling Zilker mile repeat course. As I was driving down to the workout, I thought of a good number of reasons to turn around the car, and fought off another twinge of desire to bag the workout when I arrived at RunTex before anybody else. No one would ever have known I was there...but I got past that, and figured I'd try the repeats, just to get the work in. My legs and body were still a little goofed up after all the travel and excessive eating over the holidays, and I wasn't sure how I'd do on the roads today. After the really nice mornings in Mississippi over the holidays, it was a fine welcome back to Austin to experience this Seattle-like weather. :-)

It was cool to see a bunch of the Chicago folks back in the fold today, including Frank, Marcy, Anne, Brian, Lisa, Jan and Brad, and we even had some of the folks going to Sacramento this weekend (Lilliana and Gilbert) as well as the Dallas people (Venus, Carrie). An eclectic crowd, and a much bigger crowd than usual. Maybe we've gotten to that point that the full complement of AT&T marathon types is now in attendance on a regular basis?

Gilbert sent us off to Zilker for warmups, and we made that without incident. I was among the last folks to get to Zilker, but as I've written before, I need all the warmup time I can get on these early mornings to get my legs rolling for the hard work to come. Drills drilled, and it was time to get going. Kenny was there to get us started, telling us we knew our groups. I sort of called together the people that usually run with me, and we took off, trailing Frank's group by 30-50 yards on each repeat.

The roads were sort of treacherous, especially on the steeper hilly bits, and they were especially annoying when we were trying to push UP those hilly bits. A lot of legpower was wasted as the old feet zipped along on the slick pavement. Anyway, the first mile was modestly paced, but it was still much quicker than it had seemed to me as we were running it. Rachel and I took that as a good sign. The second repeat was up that aforementioned hilly section, and despite that, we picked up the pace on mile two to a surprisingly quick number. Although we kept saying that we were searching for a pace somewhere between mile one and two, we stayed right on the same pace for miles 2-4. Mile 5, as always, was a "run how you feel" situation, and on that one, I chased Brad, who stayed a good bit ahead of me. The other folks who finished all 5 repeats were close enough behind me that I used that psychic push to keep me digging in for that final repeat. I was really surprised when the final numbers came in. The last repeat took a lot out of me, sort of a cumulative effect between the faster pace on number 5 and the total workout. Two minutes rest is pretty short on this type workout, after all.

The numbers were awfully good: 7:14, 6:59, 6:57, 6:59, 6:47. A new "PR" for this workout, by 4 seconds a mile, averaging 6:59 for 5 x 1 miles. This was definitely the first time I've had 4 miles under 7:00/mile, too. I think I've had two under 7:00 before, but not three or four! This is yet another workout that means that I have to reconsider race goals for Decker this Sunday...

This workout (Zilker mile repeats) is not the workout that I fear the most, but it is, for me, the most physically taxing workout that we do as Gazelles. I grump about Wilke, and I never feel ready for a tempo race, but the mile repeats on the rolling course leave you pretty used up. The cooldown run was with a bunch of folks, including Jan, Brad, Frank, Colleen, Brian and Rachel. We were all glad to be done, that's for sure.

Most of the stretching routine was done at RunTex, finishing under the shed after we got rained on, finally, during our stretch-a-thon. I spent a little time chatting with Lisa and Gilbert, and it was time to go. For the day, I clocked 8.8 miles. That's the last hard work until Decker on Sunday, so from here on, it's all about a mini-taper for my favorite Distance Challenge race. Brad and Jan told me that I'm only allowed one race goal...not my usual range of targets. So, I'll have to choose wisely, I guess. :-)