Zippy Zilker Mile Repeats

Man, I really didn't feel like going downtown this morning! I got plenty of rest Sunday and last night, but I could tell that I was still physically tired after the 22 miler. I couldn't imagine doing mile repeats at any particular speed feeling like that. But, after some easy stretching before I even got out of bed, and then puttering around the house getting ready, I started feeling a little more life-like. I kept trying to find a reason to turn around, even as I drove down to RunTex. Darned if I couldn't come up with a good enough reason...

Anyway, it was good running weather again. 40 degrees, slight breeze, clear skies for a change. What made me happiest, besides seeing my friends, of course, was Gilbert saying that we would do a maximum of 4 mile repeats today. Now, that's still a tough workout, but something about "only" having to do 4 x 1 mile instead of 5 or even 6 made a huge difference to my mental outlook. That alone should tell all of us that we're truly in the lunatic fringe of runners. :-)

Nice and easy warmup over to Zilker, talking to Frank and Marcy, then drills, and it was time to go. We had a huge group settle in around us after Frank's group went off, and with the last warning to go a little easier on the first repeat, we were running. I fell in just behind the lead pack of 3 or 4 runners, sort of loafing through the first half of the first repeat, going counter-clockwise on the rolling course. At that point, though, I moved on up to make sure we didn't lollygag too much. That first one was surprisingly solid, pacewise, and it felt pretty comfortable. Rachel mentioned that we used to run entire mile repeat workouts trying to average what we ran on the first "easy" one today. Es verdad!

From there on, I ran up front with Brian and Rachel, and Marty on a couple of them. We picked it up lap after lap, and finished with the fastest mile of the day. It turned out to be a very good workout, despite my internal whining this morning on the way down to the workout. On that last repeat, Brian pulled away on the nasty little hill early in the repeat, and I was thinking that he was going to run away for good, but I slowly caught back up, and we pushed each other over the last quarter of the repeat for a good finish. Thanks, Brian! I needed that today.

Splits: 7:16, 7:04, 6:57, 6:50. Average 7:02, which wasn't a "PB" for this workout, but was still very solid.

I felt pretty tired afterwards, as usual with this workout, but the cooldown run back to RunTex with Bonnie, Frank and Rachel picked me right back up. Once there, I got in most of the full stretching routine with Lisa, Rachel and Colleen. I chatted with Gilbert after that about 3M and how hard I could or should run that race, and he mentioned a pretty scary target time for AT&T while we were on that sort of subject.

That was that. After getting home, I did some core stuff and then did the foam roller stuff to work out some serious knots and junk in my legs remaining from Saturday's long run. As usual, that's some tough going, but my legs felt much better afterwards.

For the day, about 8 miles. The rest of this week will be easy running, with just the fartlek workout on Wednesday or Thursday in the "snappy" range, as we do a mini-taper for 3M on Sunday.