2 and a half laps at a time (Track 1000's)

Today, we gathered the herd for a visit to the Austin High track and 1000m repeats. It was lots of running round and round the oval. Almost all of the group that I've been running speedwork with ditched me today, so it was just Dennis, Amy and me as a pace pod. I guess it must have been something I said. :-)

Gilbert asked us to run the 1000's at the same pace as the 1200's from last week. That made sense to me, since I had noticed that the 1200's were done at a faster pace than the 1000's a few weeks prior to that. We aimed for 4:30 per 1000m, or about 7:15/mile. I did 5 x 1000m the last time we did this workout, so I set out to do at least 6, maybe 7 repeats today.

After a slightly slower 4:35 first 1000, we really got the bus rolling. The splits were 4:35, 4:31, 4:31, 4:30, 4:30, and a last 4:20. Gilbert told us 6 was a good number, and I was pleased that we were so consistent and that I could get faster on the last repeat. Except for that last repeat, I felt fairly comfortable. Stressed, but not unduly so. Was it 10K pace? Not really. But it was right in line with the 1200's.

Frank and I did our 200m striders, and then after some chatting with Gilbert about this weekend's long run route, Frank, Colleen and I headed back to RunTex.

I scored 8.45 miles for the day. Full stretching with Colleen, and I was off. I stopped at Gold's Gym for a quick core/upper workout, and then got cleaned up so I could get my massage from Ron. The massage found lots of junk in my quads and calves, but as usual, Ron worked all that out. I'm ready now for the long 20 miler on Saturday, and with a little recovery jogging tomorrow, it'll be a pretty solid workout week.

I've got plenty to do to get ready for guitar camp next week, but that easy 45-50 minute run tomorrow morning should be just the ticket to get me going.