Weekly (?) Update

This morning, on a drizzly, muggy morning, Brian, Alex, Frank and I set out for the traditional 3000m shakedown cruise around the Zilker Park loop (a loop and a half, more or less). The chatter was fun, and after the warmup jogging and the drills, we were ready to roll. Since I'm semi-goal-less for Indy, I didn't have a specific time in mind for a purported half marathon goal pace. I figured I'd just run how I felt, and see where I am. As we started, the group quickly strung out, with Alex, then Frank, then Brian, then me. I kept Brian in the same distance range until we started the last 1000m, when he strung out his lead just a bit. I managed to keep a very consistent pace, and ended up with a 7:22/mile overall pace for the 1.82 miles (not quite 3000m, but close enough). Last year, I ran more like 7:07/mile with the same perceived effort, so that gives me something of a comparative number to base things on for Saturday's race. Last year's Indy was 7:53/mile. It'll be interesting to see how closely the statistical things match up after the race...

After a quick sip of water, we headed back, and again enjoyed the conversation. I got bombed by a bird while passing under the Lamar bridge, which was disconcerting, but I'll try not to take it personally. At least it hit my leg and not my head or shoulder (I know, Yuck!). It's a pretty good feeling to hang out with the Indy Gazelles, and I'm looking forward to the trip, as usual. We chatted a bit after we got finished, and then it was time to call it a day. For the workout morning, a quick little 5.5 miles total.

To catch up from last week, I hit the gym last Tuesday for 30 minutes of indoor cycling and a single set core/leg/upper body workout. I'm just now trying to get the gym back into my routine, but it's slowly getting back. Wednesday was an easy 40 minute jog, using my HR monitor to keep under a low HR number (for me, at least) for absolute recovery. That felt good. Thursday, instead of simulating the 8x800m repeats on the schedule, I substituted a fartlek workout in my 'hood since I was housebound in the morning. I went out and did 15 minutes nice and relaxed, then 8 x 3:00 at more or less 800m effort, with 2:00 jogging between each repeat. After the 8 accelerations were done, I finished it off with 15 minutes of cooldown jogging. Given my current state of fitness, that workout was a solid one. Overall, I scored 7.6 miles for the long fartlek workout, and 4.4 miles for the recovery run.

I took Friday off (should have gotten to the gym, but...), and then cruised the 10 mile Town Lake loop with Frank and Alex on Saturday. We ran that a bit harder than I had expected, but it was okay. 10.1 miles at 9:26/mile, with all the water stops included. Our actual running pace was around 8:45/mile, I'd guess. Full stretching after that while we watched the Texas Roundup 10K pass us by at their 4 mile mark. My favorite moment was cheering for Dick Wilkowski, who is fierce at his 60+ year age. We saw him coming and yelled for him to "drop the bomb," and by God, he did! He just shifted gears right in front of us, and dusted a much younger guy ahead of him as he just blew by him. Awesome! I can only hope that I'm something like that when I get a little older...

Anyway, that catches me up to today. Yesterday, a bunch of my peeps went up to Oklahoma City for the marathon and half marathon, and suffered through a tough weather day, it seems. They all finished, but I know they'll be glad to relax for a couple of weeks before jumping back into the routine. We also saw Rachel doing her second post-Boston run on Saturday, so it was cool to see her again and chat briefly with her after we got finished.

The rest of this week? A gym visit tomorrow, 5 mile fartlek workout (10 x 1:00 accelerations) on Wednesday, off on Thursday (travel day), and the usual short jog and stretching on Friday before Saturday's half marathon. Is it wrong that I'm already looking forward to the post-half-marathon food and beer? I think not.