Mountain Bonnell

This morning was fairly cool for this time of year, maybe 72 degrees, but humid as always. Whatever the conditions, though, it was time for the first Mountain Bonnell run in quite a while. I've either wimped out or begged off of the scattered times during the spring that Bonnell was an "option" on a Scenic run day, mainly because I was nursing a quirky hip flexor. Not much of an excuse, but at the time it made sense to me to be careful. But, today, there was no excuse and I was sort of looking forward to the Assault on Bonnell that would happen during the 7th mile of the run.

Gilbert again stressed that we should be at conversational pace until the "fast finish" from O. Henry water stop. I have no problem with those instructions. And off we went. The faster folks filtered through during the first half mile, and we were mostly settled in by mile one. There was a pack of mostly guys trailing a pack of mostly gals as we all sort of found our pace together, and by the time we reached Lake Austin Blvd., we had formed up a large pack of 12 people or so. Pretty much the same folks as last week's Barton Skyway adventure in the rain, with some new folks. There were several people who I still haven't met (note to self: introduce yourself!), and the rest of the bunch were Brian, Marty, Larry, Leslie, Lisa C., Venus, Renee, and Monique, among others. I settled in about midpack and tried to let others set the early pace, and soon found Gilbert with the first water/Accelerade stop. After a pretty efficient stop there, we were off to the hills. Early pace was about 9:20/mile overall, with a nice slow first mile and then a gentle acceleration over those next couple of miles. So far, so good. I was feeling pretty snappy.

In the hills, I tried to follow folks instead of driving the pace, and that worked out well. There was a surprise extra water stop on Scenic, which we took advantage of, and then we were off again, for the tougher hills ahead and then Mt. Bonnell. All systems were still "Go," and I continued to follow for the most part. It always seems to me that those first couple of hills around Scenic are tougher just because your body is having to reset itself for that type of running. By the time we get to Pecos and beyond, you're sort of in "hill mode," and it all seems to flow a bit easier by then. Anyway, we turned as a large pack onto 35th, then Bonnell Rd., and everyone got just a little quieter as they looked inward for their hill-climbing mantra. As we hit the bottom of Mt. Bonnell, the pack immediately scattered like a Tour d'France mountain climb. Everyone has a different gear for such a steep and long hill, and we all settled into the effort to come. Larry bounced up the hill like it was nothing, and I paired up with Brian as we drove ourselves up the slopes. We caught one of the new folks right near the top of the second rise of the hill, and it was big relief to get to the flat area on top! Except for dodging a stream of much heavier automobile traffic coming down the hill towards us, it was just another Bonnell climb. But, it's always sort of a badge of honor to get on up.

We got a nice long water/Gatorade/GU break at the top, regrouped, and headed into the second half of the journey. In that post-Bonnell euphoria, we sort of glided along for a while. We went over and touched the stop sign at Balcones Woods, and per Gilbert's instructions, we then turned around, came back up to the top, and then went down Bonnell the same way we had ascended. That way is a longer trip, and it's a steeper descent, but it wasn't bad. It's been quite a while since I've come down via Mt. Bonnell Road, after all.

Larry kept me motivated to push up the hill on 35th, and then Brian, Larry and I settled in for the cruise down Exposition. It was nice for a change to have someone else drive the pace machine, and I sort of drifted along those couple of long hills on the way to O. Henry and the final water stop. We chatted away about subjects hither and yon, and it was fun to get to know a little about Larry while we cruised down the street. Sooner than you think, it's time for the O. Henry water stop. We had picked up the pace coming back, but nothing terribly fast just yet. Lisa C. caught up with us at the water stop, and after we had tanked up again (I drank at least 3 cups at each water stop, and 4 at most) including my second and last GU, it was time for whatever flavor of "fast finish" that we could muster.

I wasn't optimistic about how I'd do coming in, but as always figured I'd run how I felt and let the times be what they would be. You usually want at least MGP for the fast finish, and preferably, as Larry suggested, faster than your anticipated MGP, so that you can consider running faster at your marathon than you currently believe. Okey dokey. So, off we went. I told Larry he should go on ahead and run how he felt and let us find our own pace for those last 3 miles, and after some discussion, he took off. I found my legs about a half mile down the road, and was soon running alone, but I could hear Lisa and Brian behind me, I thought, so I kept moving along. Once I hit the trail, it was good to be able to count down the mile markers, just like it was a tempo race. That always helps me endure the last bits of the long runs, especially when we're supposed to be accelerating. I passed a few folks who weren't Gazelles, but with around 1.25 miles to go, I knew there were footsteps that had been dogging my heels for a while, and it had to be someone I knew. I resisted the urge to look back, however, figuring I'd just keep focused forward and see how it played. On the footbridge with a mile to go, though, I couldn't stand it, and peeked back to see Lisa C. cruising along just a few steps behind! She said something like "You caught me," and I just buckled down for the last mile. I kept hearing those footsteps until about a half mile to go, when I must have gotten a little extra distance between us. I wasn't sure if I was still getting faster, but I was pretty sure I wasn't slowing down too much.

Anyway, once you get to Auditorium Shores it's mentally downhill from there. I know I had that serious eye squint going on as I tried to hold my form and pace to the end. I passed a bunch of the faster Gazelles coming towards me as they did their striders, and several of them had encouraging words which helped in those last yards. I was really happy to see the finish, and the long day's work was done.

I chugged a bunch of water at the coolers, and then enjoyed the outdoor shower to pour cool water over my head to try to start my body cooling down. That's a wonderful feeling! I fussed about the first strider or two, but as usual, I felt much smoother and loose once I had done 4 of them. Once again, Larry pushed me enough to make me run them faster, which was the right thing to do. Thanks, Larry!

We found a nice shaded spot for stretching, and a large herd of Gazelles gathered to enjoy the post-run times together. Good stretching session, I thought, and we even had watermelon cut up for us to enjoy once we were done! Excellent.

The stats for the run were 14.2 miles total, 8:50/mile running pace (a little quick, maybe, but my HR numbers were in the long run range), 9:22/mile pace overall with water stop time included. The 3.2 mile fast finish averaged 8:17/mile, which is perfectly fine with me. I've done faster in the past, but this was okay, a good bit faster than MGP. Once again, I lost 4 pounds during the run, even after fairly aggressive hydration during the run and after. It's just startling to see that much of a drop, but it's easy to fix. Hello, water bottle!

For the week, I hit 40 miles running, which is a big jump over the last weeks. However, that's mostly due to 4 miles on the long run and adding the second recovery run. The Monday workout was longer miles than the circuit workout from the week before, too. It's all coming together, and I'm feeling better and better about how things are going. This next week, the mileage increase should be much more modest.