Last Long Run [Entered 5/8/06]

Saturday, it was time for the last longer run before Indy. Most of the peeps were running the Texas Roundup 10K, so the Indy gang (Frank, Alex and I) met up along the trail at 6:30 am and were joined by Mike, Rich and Thon for a Longhorn Dam loop of 10.1 miles. It was fairly nice weather for this late in the year, and we had a great time cruising around the lake. With all the people, we had chances to talk about a zillion things, and generally just had fun. We ended up with right at 9:00/mile pace for the loop, and it felt comfortable. That's a good thing, of course. No real "fast finish" on today's long run, although I picked it up just a little for the last mile or so. I certainly didn't run away from anybody, being the slowest guy in the group, probably. :-)

Afterwards, Alex, Frank and I went over to RunTex and stretched while we watched the runners go by. I think we caught most of our friends running, and tried to encourage them as best we could. They changed the race this year so that the 5K runners started with the 10K runners, but ran along the same course through about 1 mile. Then, the 5K people cut over to the last part of the 10K course. That meant that the fast finishers for the 10K had to deal with mobs of slower 5K runners spread across the street, which didn't seem to be the best idea.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun day, and now we've got very little left to do before flying up to tackle the Indy Mini. We're ready now, and just need to do some minor tuneup running between now and next Saturday. For the week, right at 30 miles.

EZ Running [Entered 5/8/06]

Thursday, I just went out for an easy 45 minute run in the 'Hood. It was alright, but nothing special. I'm just trying to keep the legs turning in these last days before the Indy Mini Marathon next weekend. Mission accomplished. 45 minutes, 4.8 miles. Nice and easy.

Surge, Recover, Surge, Etc. [Entered 5/1/06]

Wednesday, we got together for fartleks around Town Lake. The crew was largely present, and we even had some guest runners with us (Marcy, Frank, Denise, Colleen and others). We were told to do as many accelerations as it took to get around to the footbridge over the creek, or 15 x 1:00. Taking turns, we had a grand time. Weather was adequate, and we moved along nicely on the faster bits. We did take a quick water stop at Mopac, but continued our surging ways as instructed. It was a spirited workout, overall, with our average pace for the 7 mile loop being 8:41/mile, including the very easy warmup running (2 miles, about 10:00/mile) and cooldown (1 mile or so, 8:40/mile). The fast section was 3.7 miles at 8:00/mile overall pace, so the fast bits were between 7:00 and 7:20/mile, and the recovery bits more like 9:00. It was some good running.

I felt pretty good, and it was fun to get out there and get moving quickly. We did some striders afterwards, and they didn't even bite. :-)

Full stretching and I was done. Another good day at the running office. Now, if I would just get my non-Gazelles workouts done!!!

Running and Patent Law (Really!)

This morning, I joined Frank and Alex for a nice little 7 mile recovery run at Town Lake. The running was delightful, and I was pleased that I seem to be in pretty good shape after yesterday's race. We even did striders afterwards to finish off a good day of exercise. Pace was just over 9:00/mile, and it felt great.

The fun part of the run, though, was that Alex was on one of his rants, and he entertained us most of the way through the route. Without being too specific, it was generally about patent law and the current trend towards abusing the existing laws as regards computer/Internet related items. Once my friend gets going, you just let him run with it, and he'll vent until he's better. It makes for a fun time, because you can just listen and run. I admittedly egged him on a bit to keep him going, but I think it was all for a good cause. It is something I'm interested in, after all, and I always enjoy picking people's minds for their ideas. The conversation was on a much higher level than it usually is, that's for sure! It made the run fly by. I understand, by the way, that my usual pace group does the same thing to me on long runs, but today it was Alex's turn to carry the conversation. :-)

Afterwards, I did the full stretching routine with Alex, Emily and Shannon, and saw most of my usual troops as they finished up their Wilke workout. It was good to see Richard back out there. Gilbert had yet another new singlet color and design available this morning, so I snapped one of those up (it matches my new Fila shorts) so that I can be more coordinated when I wear my new "lucky" shorts. I'm not superstitious, of course, but if you set a PR wearing a certain pair of shorts, etc., you stick with them as your race outfit until they fail you, right? Or, is that just me? :-)

Return to Good Racing [Schlotzsky's Bun Run 5K]

After a 3 day running vacation (or vacation from running), I was starting to feel more than a little guilty about avoiding my responsibilities to training. Granted, I had stuff to do that interfered a little bit with my training schedule, but nothing that absolutely made it impossible to get the work done. So, it was with no little trepidation that I ventured back out this morning for the Bun Run 5K. I've run this race a bunch of times, on two or three different courses, and it remains a constant staple of my spring racing schedule. Still, it's a 5K, and 5K races are not much fun. You go out and have to run hard from the horn, without the usual first mile (or more, in the case of longer races) where you can find yourself and settle into the race. It's just very difficult to make up for a mile split that isn't satisfactory. In a 10K or longer race, you can adjust on the fly, but not with the 5K. I've joked that I'd rather run a marathon than a 5K, and that's not entirely a flippant remark.

Race goals? A masters PR would be nice, beating last year's 22:04 (7:07 pace). I'd also like to break 22:00. My ultimate goal would be to break 7:00/mile pace for the race.

I met Frank, Rich and Marcy down at the Mopac bridge this morning for our warmup run. This would guarantee that we'd have to do a cooldown run of equivalent length, and for shorter races, it's become our habit to do it this way. Weather was low 70's, humid, but with overcast skies, it didn't feel quite as oppressive as the Capitol 10K did. It probably has a lot to do with getting acclimated to the heat again. I was sporting the Fila shorts that I got at the Fila testing session on Wednesday, and they are really bright! I figured I'd better run well, because it would be bad if I was in some serious Gazelles regalia and failed to finish strong. More psychological stuff I put on myself, I guess...

The warmup was fun, and we chatted away, nervously, I think. Once we got to Auditorium Shores, we saw a few Gazelles, including Richard (with his dog), who was competing in the K9 division, and Patrick, who merely wanted to run fast. I took my pre-race GU, and we managed to find more water to wash that down. Drills in the parking lot there at the race site, and we were ready to go. We definitely had worked up a sweat! Pretty much everybody else went way up front in the crowd, but foolishly, I chose a spot that matched my intended pace...or so I thought. I shouldn't forget this EVERY TIME I RACE IN AUSTIN, but there are a lot of folks, a huge number of folks, who just don't understand race etiquette for self-seeding. A lot of casual runners don't get the whole concept of chip timing, and usually, they severely overestimate their ability to run the given race, too. More on that later...

National anthem was sung by Kelly Willis, and sung well. Always nice to have a "live" national anthem, especially by one of Austin's musical luminaries. Then, the wheelchair racers were sent away, and finally, our horn blared and we were off. Now, I'm not the fastest guy in Austin, but I still was quite annoyed for the first half mile or so today. A group of elementary school students had trained for this race, which is great. However, they also lined up on the front of the pack, and all of them except for maybe 2 people ended up walking within the first mile. That's totally cool, but they were lined up as if they were trying to win. It just made things unnecessarily difficult to navigate that first part of the race. They weren't the only problem, mind you, but a representation of a larger issue. I had to weave through walkers, joggers, several slower folks with dogs on a leash, and a host of people who hadn't the least reason to have lined up as they did. Yeah, I got through it okay, but it took away my small store of "happy" before I needed to spend it. :-) The best was when some kids went onto the sidewalk at City Hall, and then, without looking, hopped back off the sidewalk right into my path. Grrrrrr......

Once we turned the corner onto 2nd Street, things cleared up enough that I was able to find clear lanes to run in, but it took a while to put that out of my mind. There are a lot of 90 degree turns in the first mile, and I was glad to finally end up on Cesar Chavez for some wide open field running. I hit the first mile split in 7:13, about like last year. I didn't feel like I had run that fast, so again, just like last year, I figured I was already running faster than that, given the traffic issues, so I maintained that perceived level of effort for a while. I was moving well, passing people all the time, and I don't recall getting passed myself by more than one or two people, if that many.

As I approached the turn for the "Dog Pound Loop," I saw Bernard flying along on the other side of Cesar Chavez, followed distantly by the usual fast guys. There was still a pack of women runners leading their race, closely marked by the masters men who usually win those awards in Austin. I didn't see any of my buddies as I turned off to loop under Cesar Chavez, which made me very happy. I guess I was running pretty well! The band at the turnaround was playing "Get Back," and did a fine job on that tune. It helped motivate me to keep moving along. I saw Mac Allen standing on the side of the course there, and got some encouragement from him as well. Just less than half the race to go, and it seemed like forever!

I didn't see anybody I knew on the other side of the road as I merged back up onto Cesar Chavez, but then again, I was pretty focused on my own race at that time. I was feeling the effects of hard running by now, but wasn't in severe agony yet. I was still doing a good job of catching and passing people, and that always helps improve your mental outlook. Around the 2 mile marker, I caught up to the Judge (I forget his name, but he's a regular figure in Austin road races). My mile 2 split was 7:01, so I decided to latch onto him and use him as a pacemaker for the little uphill bumps on the course during mile 3. By the time we crested the last little rise, I moved on by him, feeling a quicker pace coming on. At the corner of the First Street bridge, I saw Gilbert, who was yelling encouragement at various folks. I think I was hidden from his view as I turned south, and certainly didn't have any extra energy to yell out to him! I did see Erine at the inside of that corner, and he helped me with an "attaboy!"

On the bridge, I missed the mile 3 marker, but it was way past time to be doing a hawk-eye with the watch, so that wasn't that big a deal. I kept pressing, letting the crowd's cheers push me along, and finally reached that last corner onto Riverside. Thankfully, the finish line was a little closer than I had thought, so I used my last burst of energy to push hard down the stretch all the way to the tape. Done! After some post-race gasping, I checked out the time, and saw that I had accomplished most of my goals for the day.

Last 1.1 miles in 7:43, or 7:01/mile pace. Overall, 21:57, 7:05/mile pace. Masters PR, course PR, and I broke 22:00. Given that last year's race was under perfect 50 degree weather, I'm proud of my work today. This was my 6th fastest 5K ever, behind only times that I ran 20 years ago. I'll get those one day, but today wasn't that day. Interestingly, my overall pace today was almost exactly the pace for the 4x1 mile repeats that we ran on Monday. Coincidence?

Post-race stuff included seeing Richard's wife, Stephanie, and Leslie, who were volunteering at the water/Powerade table. The Stanford's sold their house almost immediately upon putting it on the market, so that was good to hear. Alex showed up to share in the post-race vibe, fresh off of his 5K PR 19:11 yesterday in Houston (he finished 2nd overall, so that's pretty cool!). Gretchen was there, too, and seemed pretty comfortable just 5 or 6 days after Boston. We stayed for the awards ceremonies, and except for them screwing up the Clydesdale awards (they gave them out to the 4th, 5th, and 6th place finishers...duh!), it was pretty fun to see Gazelles clean up on the prizes. Frank won the Clydesdale division by a bunch, but they'll have to send him his actual award later, once they get it all straight. Marcy was fastest masters woman. Rich blasted a sub 20:00 5K, which was very impressive, too. Good running all around, it seems.

By the time Frank had gotten his paperwork to straighten out his prizes, it was pretty late, but we still had a nice relaxing cooldown jog back to the cars. Once again, I laughed inwardly about us running along, with our race numbers still affixed, long after the race was over. That's exactly the kind of behavior that I used to marvel at, back before Gazelle times. Who'd want to run before a race, or, worse, after a race? Uh, people just like me, I guess. :-)

It was a good day at the running office, and I'm much more confident about the Indy Half Marathon now that I've done a good race this spring. Just two more weeks, and hopefully, I'll drop a rare lifetime PR at the half marathon distance, defeating that much younger self that set the existing PR in 1993.

Single Lap Bursts by the Dozen

This morning, it was slightly cooler than Monday, and it actually felt allright to me out there. Maybe I'm starting to adjust to the heat? Anyway, we met up at RunTex and headed over to Austin High School for our appointment with 400m repeats. Alex was with us again, and Frank and Marcy were here today as well. Richard and Jennifer were missing, but that's all from our group. We drilled, and then it was time to get to work. I had "Love Shack" by the B-52's stuck in my head this morning, but that changed by the end of the workout.

Rich and Shannon got promoted on this workout, running up with Alex, Frank, Marcy and some other faster folks. Still, we had a big group, including John and Mark, new guys, and a girl who I didn't meet. No times were assigned, but Gilbert said if we were running the 5K Bun Run this Sunday, we should do 12 x 400m, the last one fast. We sort of agreed on a target time of 1:40/lap, subject to change. I led the first one, maybe the second one, and Brian, Rachel, Emily and others led various other laps, plus I took a few more here and there, setting the pace. Gilbert didn't notice this shifting, though, and yelled at us to get more different people up front setting the pace so "Jay didn't do all the work." I kept trying to tell him that we were doing that, but he wasn't buying it. He even assigned some lap leaders as the workout went on, so that everyone led at least one lap. With all that distraction, we stayed pretty consistent, and ended up with a nice bunch of splits. Everyone completed the assignment, and I even set a new single lap PR on the last lap, so it was a great workout!

Splits: 1:40, 1:37, 1:37, 1:39, 1:40, 1:38, 1:38, 1:39, 1:37, 1:37, 1:39, 1:27. Avg pace right at 1:37, or 6:31/mile pace.

Afterwards, the Fila rep was there to have us test drive some of their new shoes, and we all had some fun jogging around in new kicks. I liked the new Providence II's, but I need them in a 12 1/2 size, so I'll check them out in RunTex sometime soon. The ride was great, but they felt a little pinched in a size 12. For our trouble, we got to score some free Fila gear, and I picked up a nice pair of Fila running shorts. Pretty sweet!

Comfortable return cooldown run felt great, and I was much more refreshed than after Monday's mile repeats. For the day, about 6.7 miles. Oh, yeah, "Pink Cadillac" was stuck in my brain after the workout...Bruce Springsteen's original version.

I did the full stretching regimen with Alex, and Shannon and Rachel also did most of the routine. It was a pretty good day. Now, I need to get psyched up for somewhere between 7 and 10 miles tomorrow, nice and easy, since I won't be able to go long on Saturday. That won't be much fun by myself, but maybe it'll cool off a little more tonight?

Finally, a Recovery Run (and a Gym Visit, too!) [Entered 4/19/06]

Well, I finally got out there for a recovery run. It wasn't too exciting, just 50 minutes and a little over 5 miles. About 9:30/mile pace, and it felt pretty easy. I was fully wired, with iPod and GPS, and I listened to a geeky computer-themed podcast while I was out there (This Week In Tech, if you're curious). All in all, it did the job, but it was pretty boring, mainly because it was a solo run.

Afterwards, I even got up the gumption to head on over to Gold's Gym to renew my acquaintance with lifting iron and such. I just did single sets of the core/leg/and upper body exercises, and I was using lower reps and lower weights for the most part. It's been quite a while since I visited, and I could really tell. Still, it was good to start back on the full Gazelles program!

Boston Marathon

It was great to see the American men come in 3rd, 4th and 5th at Boston today! Of course, Kenyans placed the top two, but for the first time in 20 years or something, our elite marathoners broke up the usual logjam at the top of the standings. Very cool, indeed.

Now, the only thing that would have made it better would have been for the rest of my Gazelles pals to have qualified and participated this year. It was apparently great running weather today, breaking a streak of warm/hot days in Boston. We had a lot of Gazelles up in Boston, and there were some really strong times. Most of the times I saw were between 3:15 and 3:35, a tidy little grouping. I can't wait to hear their Boston tales!

Zilker Repeats, Warmed Over

For the first morning all year, it was noticeably warm and muggy today for our Gazelles workout. It was tolerable, at 75 degrees and very humid, but it's sure not as much fun as it was when we did this workout the last time. Most of my pace group was there this morning, with only Richard, Amy and Jennifer missing in action. Frank had a flat and missed, too. Alex joined us this week, shifting to Monday/Wednesday to accomodate a Saturday race date in Houston this weekend. The warmup run (hilarious to consider it a "warmup" run when we were warm just standing around...) was fine and dandy, and we took the new bridge/path under Barton Springs Road to get over to the workout site. I estimate 1.7 miles on the warmup, based on time. Drills and then it was time to go.

Gilbert grouped us up, and Rich graduated today to run with Alex and a new person who I did not know. Rich is Fast! I foolishly asked Gilbert how many repeats to do, and he said "you know what to do." Okay. Our "easy" first mile repeat on the rolling course was pretty quick, at 7:10. That's way faster than we usually begin. I'd like to blame someone for that, but we all participated in setting the pace, so I suppose we just have to accept it. :-) Two minutes rest, a cup of water (some splashed on my head), and we were off on lap two. We got quicker on that one, as we usually do, and nipped under the 7 minute barrier with a 6:59. The group was starting to spread out, but we all did the third repeat, and I finished with another 6:59 lap. I thought I was slowing down. Everyone pretty much was done by then, and Shannon and I tried to stop, but Gilbert just gave us a glare and waved us back on the course. She and I both backed off a touch, and I finished behind her on the fourth repeat at 7:10. A strangely symmetrical distribution of splits, eh? When we were done, Gilbert gave Shannon and I a "thumbs up," which meant a lot after forcing myself through that last repeat. Little bits of encouragement from Coach go a long way with all of us!

I don't like to have my last repeat slower, but today, my legs were pretty much cooked, and that's all I had. My average repeat pace was a couple seconds faster than 4 weeks ago, so that was good to see, especially with the weather conditions so much more favorable last time out. I looked back to last year at this time, and I did these repeats 27 seconds/mile faster than April 2005. That's really cool, to see a year over year comparison like that where you can directly track your improvement.

Shannon and I were well and truly done after that, and joined the rest of the gang for a relaxed run back to RunTex. It was really nice that a large group waited for us, and the company made for a much more pleasant return trip. Full stretching session later with Alex, Shannon and Rachel, and we were done with a tough workout day.

For the day, about 8 miles. My goal for the week is to do all the workouts, including the recovery runs and gym visits. I've backtracked a little over the last few weeks, and I need to nip that habit before it goes too much longer. Indy is just a few weeks away, and it would be dumb to waste some good training by slacking off now!

"Cross Training"

After willfully ignoring it for the early Spring, I finally bowed to pressure and did some yardwork this afternoon. The mowing wasn't too bad, and then I did a fair amount of work mending the fence around the back yard. There were several missing boards that I replaced, and it was a good excuse to get out the cool cordless drill. I almost felt like a handy guy for a moment out there. :-} It gave my legs a chance to gently move around, and that's always a good thing. Whether it had actual value for training, I doubt, but it was a decent afternoon of home chores done. Oh, yeah, I did our taxes, too, so that's another thing crossed off the list. Fairly productive day, all things considered! Mile repeats tomorrow...yee hah!

Der Kommisar's In Town, Oh Oh!

Sometimes I can't believe the songs that end up being discussed on long runs! I sort of like Der Kommisar, but it just wouldn't get out of my head once it was mentioned. Thanks, Richard. :-)

It was an acceptable weather morning, humid, but 70 degrees and mostly overcast until the last 4 miles or so. We had good attendance for the Mountain Bonnell run today. Jennifer and Rachel were out, but everyone else was there, and we added Leslie to our gang. Nine of us rolled out of RunTex at 6:00 am, and it was a pretty lively bunch. There was extensive conversation about obscure 80's music, as usual. Also on the topic list was serious talk about cars (old muscle cars from the 60's) and their restoration, as well as other flotsam and jotsam. Lots of people to choose from, and the conversations were many and varied. We grabbed a quick water at Mopac to tide us over, and then from there it was the usual Scenic loop and on to Bonnell proper. I hung back most of the early run, letting others set the pace through Scenic for a change. Since I was going a bit longer than most, I figured it would be wise to save some energy for the extra Bonnell assaults I was planning. Going up Bonnell, the front bunch were Shannon and Rich, followed by Brian and me. Leslie was right on my heels. Everyone else came up soon enough, but it was a fairly long Powerade/GU stop there on Bonnell.

Only Richard was interested in going towards 2222 on Mt. Bonnell Road and then back up and over Bonnell again. We took it sort of easy going down, and on the way back up to the top on the return trip, he told me to go on ahead, so I finished a little ahead of Richard on that little loop. Another quick Powerade stop there (because we could), and after a little extra wait time, it was time to go home. I actually sort of enjoy the stresses of this extended visit to Bonnell. It can only make you stronger, mentally and physically.

From there, it was the usual trip down the other side and onto Exposition. Again, Richard told me to go on ahead on Exposition, so I picked it up a little heading towards O. Henry Middle School and the last Powerade stop. Richard's been putting in some late nights getting his house ready to go to market, so he's running on low energy. I'm glad he pushed through today, though, because it would have been tough to do more than half of today's mileage by myself! We grouped back up after the Powerade/GU stop, and stuck together to Mopac. At that point, he needed to stretch his calves a bit, so again, he told me to go on. I did a relaxed "fast finish" today, only dipping down to the 8:20-8:30/mile range, but it felt fine to me. There's a new area of trail construction and detours at Auditorium Shores, so all our usual mile markers are no longer valid. I like to use those to confirm the GPS numbers when I can, but today no such luck. Once I was done, I did a handful of strides as I made my way back to RunTex.

I grabbed my stuff from the car, and took over the stretching session from Pete, who had to get going for family obligations. It was a big group there for stretching, but we had a pretty good time nonetheless.

Another good running day. For the day 15.4 miles, average running pace a slower 9:10/mile. With all the stop time, and it was more than usual today, it drifted to 9:49/mile.

Splits: 10:27, 9:38, 0.35 miles at 9:51/mile (Mopace water stop), 9:05, 9:23, 9:08, 9:01, 0.76 miles up Bonnell at 9:24/mile pace (Powerade/GU stop), 9:34, 0.73 miles back up the other side of Bonnell at 9:23 (Powerade stop), 9:24, 9:11, 8:37 (start of "fast finish" on Exposition), 0.24 miles at 8:12/mile pace (Powerade/GU stop), 8:33, 8:34, 8:21, 0.2 miles at 7:50/mile.

1000 Meters, Sliced Up And Repeated

I was bad and skipped yesterday's casual recovery run. For that reason, I felt a little guilty as I joined the crew this morning for track work. We thought we were scheduled for 400m repeats, but when we got there, Gilbert announced that it would be the 3-4 x (600/400m) repeat workout. Same location, different stuff. Everyone was there this morning, at least in my pace group, and we enjoyed a nice comfortable warmup jog over to Austin High School's track. A Rogue training group was doing some sort of workout there, too, but it wasn't a problem at all. Drills drilled, we grouped up and were off. As always, Gilbert said to run the 600 and 400m pieces at "10K pace," with a 200m jog between the 600 and 400. Full 2:00 rest between each set. Instead of trying to figure out what pace to run, we just figured we'd get into it, and see where we were. That meant that virtually none of us were actually running 10K pace...unless we were running a dream goal 10K pace in the future somewhere. :-)

David Mitchell joined us today, so we had even extra guys, including Mark, who I had thought was in the beginner group. They both hung with us most of the day. As has been our pattern lately, it's been a relief to have lots of people willing to set the pace on the various speedwork laps. We did a good job of being consistent on the first set and second set. Gilbert stopped us then, and decided that we were having too much fun. He split off Brian, Shannon and someone else...who was it? Anyway, they went off, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of us. I think G just wanted to put pressure on some of the group (the front group), which would also cause us to run quicker because they weren't that much different than us. We generally ran the same sorts of times, I think. After we finished repeat number 3, I had to do one more, according to Gilbert, and the rest of the gang was nice enough to hang around with me for that last go-round. More good running later, we were finished. It was a really good workout, and much faster than I've ever done this one.

Splits (600/400): 2:41/1:46, 2:43/1:39, 2:32/1:40, 2:32/1:36. Those 400's, at least the last three of them, were just like our normal 400m repeat pace. Overall average mile pace was 6:54/mile for the 4000m of repeats. This was another really great workout for us, and although it was hard work, it wasn't crazy pace or anything like that. We all felt like we had something in reserve, so I'll say it was properly paced.

The run home was fun, as we were joined by Frank. We made plans as a pace group to meet on Saturday for a Mountain Bonnell loop, and hopefully some of them will join me for the journey over the top of Bonnell and back up to make a 15-16 mile day of it. Full stretching afterwards, and I was a happy runner. For the day, 6.7 miles. I've got to do the recovery run tomorrow...it's a bad habit to get into to skip workouts, even if they're "just" recovery runs. Every workout has a purpose after all.

2000 Meters, Repeat as Needed [Entered 4/12/06]

Monday was a return to speedy work, 2-4 x 2000m on the Zilker street course. It's actually slightly over 2000m, but it's close enough for our purposes. It was a nice cool morning, about 60 degrees, and we had the usual fun chitchat on the way over to the top of the course. Drills in the dark, and we had to dodge another training group that was there running the "wrong" way around the Zilker loop as we warmed up. Lots of folks were tired this morning, judging from the reluctance to get moving on each individual drill. Long weekends, I guess.

Gilbert told us that 2 x 2000m was the minimum, and suggested 3 for most of us, although "four would be fine." We had most of our crew there, except for Jennifer, who is still fighting through a calf injury. I figured we'd run these "how we felt," and see how it went. The first one felt sort of quick, but not crazy fast. Turns out it was equal or better than my fastest effort ever on this particular workout. From there, it only got faster. We had a good mix of people taking turns pushing the pace, and it ended up being a great set of repeats. After the third one, no one could get energized to do a fourth, so we were done. Still, it was some excellent running. I checked back, and my average pace on these was 20 seconds faster per lap than my previous best. That's pretty cool. Average mile pace was under 7:00/mile, which was very exciting.

Splits: 8:47, 8:33, 8:35. Average 8:38/lap, or 6:55/mile pace. Strong running for us!

The cooldown run was fairly frisky as well, clicking in at 8:40/mile pace or so. All in all, it was a really good day at the running office. I stuck around afterwards for a good stretching session, and got to chat with Shannon and Rachel. A little over 7 miles total for the day.

Long Train Runnin' [Entered 4/12/06]

Saturday, it was time for the longest post-Freescale run of the spring season thus far. Gilbert had groups going all different directions, but my pace group decided to do a different route for most of them, offering lots of different places to modify the final distance for each individual. It was a good turnout on a nice cool morning, temps in the high 50's at the start. Rachel and Jennifer couldn't be there, but everyone else joined me for the fun and games. We also had a new guy, Steve, who turned out to be a really fast guy trying to get in a nice slow long run.

At any rate, the route was not as challenging as the Bonnell runs of past weeks, as we went out on the trail, and continued past the Longhorn Dam to the extra loop that starts at Riverside and Grove. Conversation was fun, and the pace was manageable for everyone in the group. We stopped briefly at the 4 mile mark for Powerade and GU, and then journeyed on. The portion of the extra loop that is along the river downstream of Longhorn Dam is very peaceful, and it doesn't feel like you're even in a city. Just trees and trail for a mile or so. We eventually popped up along the softball fields there, and under the tunnel through the dam. Shannon started feeling like going faster along here, so we picked up the pace up and over the dam chasing her down. The next water stop was along the trail at a convenient fountain, about 8 miles into the run.

Heading back under I-35, people started making their decisions on final run length. Brian, Shannon and Rich pulled ahead with Emily to accelerate to their finish, cutting across the Pfluger bridge, I think. Amy, Steve and Richard stayed with me to the Mopac bridge, where we grabbed another cup or two of water and my final GU. Amy and Steve had had enough, and headed back at that point for around 13.5 miles. Richard stayed with me, and we followed the trail that winds northward underneath Mopac towards Enfield. We did some cross country type running to negotiate some barriers that were put up along the trail where it had washed out last year under the heavy rains in April. When we got to Enfield, Richard's calf was bothering him, so he turned back at that point. It was nice to have company so deep into the run, that's for sure!

From there on, I was running alone, but it turned out to be pretty fun. After getting up the rolling terrain of Enfield, I turned south onto Exposition, and found myself running against the oncoming tide of 5K runners doing the Fertile Hope run. I didn't know it at the time, but Lance Armstrong was in the race, finishing 8th. I was looking for Gazelles and just missed him entirely. I suppose Lance just looked like all the other really fast guys at the front of the race. :-) There were lots of Gazelles in the race, most of them in the top 1/3 of the race. By the time I got back down to Lake Austin Blvd., that excitement was over, and I had roughly 3 miles to go.

I picked it up a little bit for the last miles, but my legs were a bit more tired than usual at the end of a long run, so I didn't go sub-8:00 or anything like that. It was strange to follow the trail detour at Point Neff, but they've done a good job of putting down a level running surface along the soccer fields at Zilker. Once I was done, I saw Alex and Frank, who had done the same route, only slightly faster. We knocked out a few strides, and then I found my way over to the stretching crew. Gilbert had started them off, and I was able to step in and finish up the morning's festivities with everyone.

It was a really solid long run, 16.5 miles. Average overall running pace 9:00/mile, and with water stop time added, pace was still 9:19/mile.

Splits: 9:41, 9:34, 9:22, 9:15, 0.4 miles at 9:21, (water/GU stop), 8:44, 8:44, 9:15, 9:11, 0.4 miles at 8:53 (water stop), 9:16, 8:46, 0.68 miles at 8:58 (last water/GU stop), 9:29, 8:40, 8:26, 8:24, 8:14.

It Was Forty Years Ago Today...

I just finished the new Beatles biography written by Bob Spitz, and it was by turns wonderful and sad. It's still stunning to me that they were able to churn out, seemingly without effort, so much music in so short a time that still resonates with us to this day. Reading the "behind the music" blow by blow made it even more amazing.

At any rate, it was indeed 40 years ago today that they met in Abbey Road studio 2 to start work on what would become "Revolver." In the very first session, they nailed the primary tracks for "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Got To Get You Into My Life." All in a night's work, I guess.

I've got to go now and play some guitar!

Gilbert Takes Pity On Us

This morning (it was nice enough, at about 70 degrees, but still pretty humid) a very small crew gathered at RunTex for the workout. The Boston people had left earlier to do 800m repeats at the track. I figured Gilbert would send us over for that workout as well. Instead, we stood with the beginner Gazelles and listened to Gilbert try to figure out what to do with us. He had wanted us to do a tempo race today, but we're still feeling the Cap 10K, and I think he could sense that. After shuffling the group several times ("If you ran Capitol 10K, go to the left" "Okay, if you want to do fartleks, move to the right" and so forth), my pace pals all ended up in the fartlek pile. He assigned us 7 x 2:00 quick/1:00 recovery, and we were off.

My hamstrings are still pretty tight after the circuit workout and Cap 10K, so it took a while to get loose. Sean and Alex joined us as guest runners, and the rest of the gang was Amy, Shannon, Emily, Rich and Brian. We did a slightly extended warmup portion, and then commenced the acceleration section. It was a pretty solid workout, with most of us taking a turn leading the pack. Coincidentally, we finished the last acceleration just before the Mopac water stop, so we took advantage of that to cool down a bit.

The cooldown run from there was a bit of an adventure, though. The trail is undergoing some repair between mile 1.5 and 1, so we took the detour across the fields at Zilker Park. That was pretty cool running on the grass. Finally, we returned to the regular trail for the last mile. We were observing good trail etiquette, running two abreast, and were passing a group of slower runners on the trail, when we came upon a lone runner coming the other way. He was running about 4 feet from his side of the trail, more or less centering himself (or, if you drew an imaginary line down the middle of the trail, I suppose he was on his side of that middle line). There was plenty of room, and we were in the middle of a pass. At any rate, he ran pretty much right towards me and stopped right in front of me with a look of exasperation on his face. I will guess that he intended to let us know that we were violating some sort of rule or were taking up too much of the trail. He was silent, though, so we flowed by him, and just shook our heads. We have all had moments on the trail in high traffic times where we had to slow dramatically to work our way past big packs of slower runners, and it's just one of those things. Or, if you're running alone, there's times where you have to move to the edge of the trail, but it's never a reason to try and pick a confrontation. I resolved to try and put it past me, but it's bugging me just a little bit even now. I hope he's not like that in his everyday life, too.

That ugliness aside, it was a good workout, and we finished it off with 6 x 100m striders. I added most of the stretching routine afterwards, and called it a day.

The warmup was at about 9:30/mile pace, 2.2 miles or so. The fast bits were about 2.6 miles at about 8:05/mile pace overall. We finished it off with 2.1 miles of cooldown running at something like 9:15/mile pace. For the day, 7 miles more or less. I didn't wear the GPS watch today, but it's no big deal.

Circuitry

Today we met for circuit training, which Gilbert said would help restore our bodies after yesterday's racing. Okay. A very small crew showed up for the festivities. Emily, Shannon, Colleen, Marcy, Brian, Richard and Frank was the full list. Brian drove up in his hot rod Camaro, engine burbling and exhaust grumbling as he rolled into the RunTex lot. He claims it's because his Suburban still has the trailer on it from going to the car show this weekend, but I think he was just feeling rowdy today. :-) Fortunately, we were all similarly paced people, so we had an enjoyable warmup at slow speed over to the track. Once we got there, there was some sort of new training group of women standing at parade rest listening to their coach or instructor. They ended up doing a circuit workout as well after a lot of instructions.

The Beginner Gazelles showed up, too, and we all did our drills on the far side of the track to avoid getting tangled up with that other new group. After a creaky start, the drills actually felt pretty good to my stiff legs and body.

The actual circuit workout was the standard fare, with just easy 400m jogs between sets. I ended up doing 3 sets, and I was relieved that I felt okay doing that after my long vacation from the gym (tomorrow, maybe?). After 3 circuits, we joined Gilbert for 2 x 1:00 of "fast feet," and that was the full day. Frank suggested the long cooldown (2.5 miles), and all of us went that way.

For the purpose intended, this workout did exactly what it was supposed to do. I did feel a bit revived after we were finished, and did my favorite parts of the stretching routine after we got back to finish off the day. It was good to have Shannon back with us today, and I hope her IT issues continue to improve.

Zillion Percent Humidity Racing (CAPITOL 10,000)

Ay-yi-yi!!! This is not subtle foreshadowing. Today, the weather was as bad as it usually gets for this race. About 75 degrees, which by itself isn't too awful, but the humidity was pegged at the top of the scale. It was darned near impossible to have your body do its normal cooling thing with evaporation, given the conditions. But, I digress...

The day started okay. No problem parking, and I found my way down to the appointed meeting place early. Took advantage of the nonexistent port-o-lines and did my pre-race work there, and then met up with the gang at the zero mile marker on the trail. We knocked out a super easy 2 miles, more or less, around 10:00/mile pace, and then drilled and strode. Properly warmed up, we sauntered over to the start line for some easy stretching, and then it was time to join the crowds waiting for the horn to go off. I lined up in the corral with Richard and Shannon. I was sipping water when I found it, and was ready to go, I thought. Took my pre-race Enervitene (I had one left over from the marathon), and it was time.

The national anthem was done by a woman who had the strangest inflection in her words...the singing was fine, but there were some strange twists in the sound of the lyrics. We had lined up in the front corral, but as usual there were lots of walkers who had somehow found their way up there as well. What are they thinking? At the horn, we surged forward, and finally we crossed the line about 40 seconds after the horn. Richard and Shannon scooted ahead, and Richard even said that he needed to get some early distance on me so that I wouldn't catch him later. Shannon is just faster than we are right now, so I wasn't planning on seeing her again. I might have a chance to run with Richard.

Some serious weaving through the crowd later, I passed by the first singing group, a guy playing a resonator guitar singing some bluesy number, and at the top of Congress Ave, we passed the second act, a rock group giving us some serious motivation. I missed the first mile marker in the crowds. I saw Richard up ahead about 40-50 yards, and just kept an eye on him. Stalker mode. So far, I felt okay, but it isn't an easy course. The course is different this year, so we had to go up the hill to the east of the Capitol, then down and back up on the north side of the Capitol on 15th Street. I was mostly trying to find my rhythm at this point. Up the north side of the Capitol, I started to close on Richard, and finally caught him right at the 2 mile mark on the rolling hills of Enfield. I grabbed a quick cup of water there and doused my head with another cup, and moved on. My two mile split wasn't what I had hoped, but if I ran my usual race, I'd be able to pick up the overall pace later. If.

Splits miles 1 and 2: 15:45 for two miles. I estimate splits of 7:55 and 7:50, because I ran harder in mile two trying to catch Richard.

Mile 3 has the big hill climb in it, on Enfield. I managed to get through that in fairly good fashion. Not working super crazy hard, but keeping up the pressure. I was trying now to keep Richard from catching me, where I was in my better element, the hills. He's faster than me on the flats, so I needed to get a gap in the rolling terrain. At the 3 mile mark, I grabbed another cup of water to douse my cap, and moved on. Along Winstead, we negotiated the last significant hill, and enjoyed a neighborhood band that traditionally plays for us during the race. I passed Volel during mile 4, but neither of us had the energy to say much to each other at that point. I was still hopeful of a reasonably decent time, depending on how mile 4 went. Down the hill to Veterans, and we were in the homestretch. By now, I wasn't having the most fun ever, but I tried to keep focused on the job at hand. The mile 4 marker came and went, and it was time to figure out what I was going to try to do for the rest of this thing.

Mile 3 and 4: 7:51, 7:39. I still had a shot at a masters PR, if I could pick it up just a tiny bit.

During mile 5, however, the wheels came off. The heat and humidity caught up with me, and I was reduced to a short walk through the water stops in that mile. Those water stop walks got longer and longer, and now I was worried that I was going to see Richard and a bunch of other people go by me at the end. I gamely moved along, with my legs feeling just fine, but my cooling system had shut down on me for the most part. Mile 5 was not great. It got a little worse during mile 6, and this is where I really fell apart. I guess it's all relative, but I was pretty grumpy along here. I did see Carla Varela and Frank's kids along the side of the road, but I don't think I did a great job of waving to them. The band at Lamar Street was great, but that's about the only fun thing in that stretch. Finally, the turn to the First Street bridge came, after seemingly eons waiting for it. Mile 6 split was awful, but now, I got picked up by the crowds for the last .21 miles, and did a reasonable job of sprinting to the tape. Thank God, it was over! Drenched, I caught my breath and moved towards the refreshments.

Splits miles 5-6.21: 8:00, 8:24, 1:26 (6:50 final sprint pace). Total 49:05, 7:54/mile average pace. I guess I'll take it, but it wasn't at all what I had thought myself capable of.

We quickly found all our friends hanging out past the finishing chute, and it seems the primary mood was relief that it was over. Most everyone had missed their target time by a minute or two, so I was among friends there. Gilbert's cousin, Bernard, actually overheated and crashed in the last couple of tenths of a mile on the course, while he was leading by several minutes. He did not finish. It was apparently pretty scary, but after several IV bags, he was coming around.

A few of us did a super easy mile cooldown trot, which helped to bring the legs back and bring the body temperature gently back to normal. We were all guzzling multiple water bottles. My clothes were totally drenched afterwards. Even my socks were heavy with water. Yuck. The best post-race snack were little boxes of orange juice which were frozen (whether intentionally or not, I don't know). If you ripped off the top of the carton, it was like eating an orange slush. Awesome!

Alex, Amy, Colleen, Joseph and I made the long walk back to the parking decks, and the day was done. I need to redeem myself after this one, but we all survived to run another day, so we should be thankful.

Easy running...

This morning, it was an easy 30 minutes of running on the trail with the gang. We rolled through about 3.2 miles in those 30 minutes, and although I felt a little heavy-legged, everything else checked out just fine. Most of my normal gang was there, and Alex and Marcy even joined us for the slow stroll. After that, we knocked out 6x100m striders as we watched the Dillo Run for kids finish at Auditorium Shores.

Gilbert wanted to do some filming for use at his public talks in the future, so we trundled over to a far corner of the park to do the balance drills and some more striding for the cameras. It was actually fun, but the day was starting to be a little longer than it needed to be. At any rate, after all that, we met up over at RunTex for the stretching session, and then the day was done. I chatted with Pete, Alex and Colleen for a bit, and then scooted out of there. I guess I'm ready for tomorrow's 10K race. We'll see.

Oh, yeah, I picked up my 15th pair of Wave Creations yesterday since my November pair are truly dead.

Goals for tomorrow:
Relaxed goal: 47:52 masters PR (This should be fine, if the weather cooperates)
Push it goal: 47:00 next round number time (Again, based on training, I should be there...)
Really Push It Goal: 46:25 Lifetime PR set way back when in 1993
Crazy Goal: 46:00 another round number time (7:24 pace should be within reach...)

Fartleks for Capitol 10,000

As we say every time, this was the standard Wednesday workout prior to a weekend race, a session of fartlek accelerations sandwiched into a 7 mile run on the trail. We had a big group this morning, with Brian back after his skiing weekend, Amy, Rich, Richard, Colleen, Frank, and Emily. 20 minutes easy running led into 10 x 1:00 accelerations with 1:00 rest, and with that big of a group, only Brian and Emily had to lead more than one interval. It was fun today, with the pace pickups being reasonable for a change, and after a nice 2 miles of cooldown afterwards, we had had a good day at the running office. We even did our 5x100m striders. I felt much better on this than I did yesterday, so it was definitely the shoes on Tuesday that caused my discomfort. Weather was very humid, but cool at 60 degrees. Perfectly acceptable running weather.

We got 7 miles of running, average pace was 9:01. If you add in the one minute water stop, it was more like 9:10/mile, but who cares, really? The acceleration miles were 2.3 miles at 8:17/mile, which includes all those recovery intervals as well, so we were moving quite nicely, thank you.

Recovery on Old Shoes

Ah, yes. A beautiful spring afternoon, pleasant temperatures around 70 degrees, and it was time for a quick recovery run. I had planned on an hour's run, nice and easy. However, I also wore my lucky 13th pair of Creations for this run, hoping to get a few more runs in them before they are retired. Within the first half mile of the run, my shins were screaming at me. When shoes go dead, they go fast. I stuck it out for around 40 minutes, but just couldn't take it anymore after that. On pavement, those shoes absolutely won't cut it anymore. I managed to get in 4.2 miles, average pace 9:05/mile, so it wasn't a totally lost day, but it wasn't much fun, either. I did some balance drills afterwards to loosen up the hips and legs, and that helped, but those shoes won't be used again unless I'm going to be on a softer running surface! Time to get the 15th pair of Mizunos to start rotating in with my current Freescale 2006 pair.

Meriden, the LP version

The wacky weather delivered a humid 65 degree morning to us today, after the crisp weekend weather. Go figure. Gilbert had those of us doing longer races this spring and summer leave from the main RunTex location for a long warmup/cooldown, so Carrie, Amy, Tonya, Frank, Rachel, Colleen, and Jennifer all left together for the journey to Meriden for the 1000m hilly repeats. It seems like forever to get all the way over to the Meriden hills, but it's really only 3.1 miles. Going over, we averaged 9:30/mile, a reasonable warmup pace. The people who left from the Lake Austin RunTex were done with drills when we got there, so I did an abbreviated set of drills just to loosen up a bit, and it was time to start repeating.

I paired up with Carrie, who I thought told me that Gilbert wanted her to run with me so I could pace her through the workout. Turns out, Carrie usually goes out too fast and hates the last repeats at Meriden, so she just decided that I'd be a good pace partner for the day. I didn't find that out until later, though. And, right before we started, I foolishly asked Gilbert how many repeats I should do. He said, "For you, there is no question!" Chastened, I joined Carrie at the start line for the first of 5 repeats. :-)

I guess I did what Carrie needed, but as the repeats went on, and on, and on, we each had times when we were doing the pace work. The first repeat was faster than I usually start, and we got faster on every subsequent repeat, which is how I hope the workout goes every time. On the last repeat, though, on the way up that first tough hill, I was thinking how great it would be if Carrie pulled away on that one so I could back off a little. Sadly, I found another gear instead, and stayed with her until the last hill to the finish, where I pushed ahead slightly. It was yet another example of what subtle peer pressure from within your pace group can do for you.

Splits: 4:56, 4:55, 4:50, 4:47, 4:45. Average pace probably 7:14/mile on a hilly course. Average split was 4:51, quicker than I usually have done this workout. Carrie really helped today to get me to push a little harder, and it didn't feel like seriously bad running. Yes, my legs felt pretty dead on that hill starting the fifth repeat, but I pushed through that. And, yes, I had to put hands on knees to catch my breath after the last couple of repeats, but during the runs themselves, I felt more or less in control of my pace. It was a great Meriden workout!

Of course, that's just the main course for Meriden. There was still dessert to come. 5 uphill striders, which were actually pretty reasonable today, and then 3 backwards uphill striders, which I managed to finish this time without falling on my butt. Once done, your quads are pretty well cooked, but it's a good kind of tired, right?

I paired up with Frank for the cooldown run, and we ran along with Amy and Tonya for a pretty sprightly 8:45/mile average for the 3.1 cooldown miles. For the day, 10.1 miles, and that makes for a nice start to the running week!

I stuck around for most of the full stretching routine with Carrie, and then it was time to get going. Now, will I get back to the gym this week? That seems to be the big question for me. The running seems to be totally on track...but the gym is an important part of the whole package, too.

Rollercoaster! (Say What?) Oooh Oooh Oooh! [Entered 3/27/06]

Saturday was a new and interesting long run with the Gazelles. Gilbert wanted us to run the first, hilly part of the Capitol 10,000 course and then do Scenic and then Mountain Bonnell for those of us training for half marathons and beyond. So, 6:00 am and we were off. It was pretty chilly, around 38 when we started, but for me that was fun running weather. Our pretty large crew was Rich, Jennifer, Rachel, Volel, Luis, Colleen, and somebody else(?). Maybe that was the whole gang. At any rate, over to the start of the Cap 10K course, and then up Congress, around the Capitol to the right (that's new this year), and back on course on 15th Street. I think the new course is slightly more hilly. Perhaps they've done this to add a tiny bit of distance early so that they can move the finish line back to avoid the traffic circle now on Riverside? We were a chatty bunch, of course. We went straight on Enfield and then down Exposition to hit the O. Henry water/Powerade stop there. That finished the Capitol 10K portion of the festivities. Since I had 'em, I took a GU there.

Splits miles 1-4.24: 9:30, 9:24, 9:22, 9:03, and .23 miles at 8:33. Average so far 9:17/mile. A fairly concise 2:10 water stop, and we were off.

Scenic was enjoyable for me, at least. It was quite pretty as we saw the early morning mist coming off the lake, and we realized yet again why those folks pay so much for their houses along the shore. Those people not doing longer races turned at Enfield to head back for 10 miles, leaving our sturdy crew of Jennifer, Rachel, Luis and me to continue on to Mt. Bonnell. I think we backed off slightly from previous runs up Scenic and Bonnell, but it was still well paced. When we got to Bonnell itself, I went ahead and pushed on up the hill, and that was pretty satisfying. Everyone else got up in good fashion, too. I chatted briefly with Alex and Frank at the Bonnell Powerade stop, took a second GU, and it was time to get moving again. So far, so good, and from here the course seems so much easier. I guess when you are standing on top of a mountain, it surely can't get any hillier when you start out going downhill like that, right?

Splits miles 5-8.7: 8:53, 9:09, 9:05, 8:43, and 0.41 miles up Bonnell at 8:57/mile pace. Average pace so far 9:07/mile. Another Powerade/GU stop in 3:16, which includes some time spent waiting for the group to reform.

Down Balcones Woods, Jennifer and Rachel discussed interior decorating and paint selection, which was amusing. Up the tough little hill on 35th, then down the Exposition and finally to O. Henry again for the last Powerade/GU stop. I took a last GU just because I had it with me. I was feeling great by now, and I was ready for the "fast finish" to the day.

Splits miles 9-12: 8:41, 8:44, 8:49, 0.3 miles at 8:41/mile pace. Overall, 9:01 running pace. Last water stop was 1:56.

On the fast finish, I heard footsteps for the first mile, and then after that, I crossed the Mopac bridge and ran alone to the finish. It was certainly a strong effort, but I didn't think I was going quite as quickly as I was. Despite some traffic issues on the trail (the beautiful weather brought out lots of extra people today), I was able to run how I wanted all the way to the tape.

Splits miles 13-15: 1.2 miles at 7:41, 7:30, 7:46. Overall pace dropped to 8:43/mile, a good run by any measure on that course. With the three water stops included, pace for the day was 9:12/mile. Final mileage was 15.27. It was really cool to drop to sub-half marathon pace for the last 3.2 miles, and served as a big confidence booster for me.

5x100m striders, then the full stretching session in the warm morning sun. Nice. I joined the Janiaks, Alex, and Connie for a big breakfast at Magnolia Cafe again this week, and that just finished off a great morning of running.

For the week, I was still at 38 miles since I skipped the Thursday recovery run. It was a good week, though.

Goin' Round and Round

Today was one of those workouts that makes you dizzy, but is a necessary element of any training program: 15 x 400m repeats on the track. We did 20x400m a month or so before Freescale, so this was a shorter workout than that, but it's still a lot of laps. When I got to RunTex, I stayed in my truck until I had to get out, a little sleepy, and once Gilbert arrived, the bulk of the troops left for the track. Gilbert needed to update his new phone, so I stayed for a moment so he could enter all my phone numbers. Once that was done, it was closer to 6:00, and only Amy and Frank were still around. So, our little group scurried off to the track, chatting away, and we arrived not too far behind the rest of the folks. It was nice out there, by the way, crisp, clear and 45 degrees. My kind of running weather.

Drills drilled, it was time for the assignment. The Boston people had to do 20x400m, and Gilbert sent them off right away. The rest of us were split into two groups as well. Those folks only doing 10K racing this spring were to do 10-12 x 400m, trying to drop their times as the workout went along in groups of 4 repeats. Those were to be done with only the 1:00 rest between repeats. Those of us doing the Indy half marathon had to do 15 x 400m, with the 1:00 rest between repeats, but also after every 5 repeats, we were to jog a 400m lap. So, 3 sets of 5x400m repeats, dropping our per lap times by 2 seconds each set.

We started with our friends, so our initial group was Amy, Rich, Richard, Brian, Rachel, and Jennifer. We took turns leading the laps, and by the end of those 5 laps, we had ended up with the 1:40 target average that I had hoped for. At that point, Richard, Jennifer and I did our first jogged lap, and the others stayed on the other schedule. Jennifer is doing Boston, of course, and wanted to stay with us instead of trying to chase the other, faster, Boston people. We even had Frank with us on that jog lap, so we did some chatting as we went around. The next set was pretty successful, too, and I was glad to have Richard with me. It's hard to keep your pacing on target when you're by yourself on the track, and we helped each other by taking turns leading those laps. One more jogged lap, and time for the last set. We were supposed to get down to 1:36 or so on this set, and I guess we did our job. I took us through those last 3 laps, and armed with the knowledge that Richard was right there, counting on my pace work, we finished in good fashion. The end of a long running day...

Splits: 1:42, 1:41, 1:41, 1:40, 1:39 for the first set. 1:40.5 average, right on target. Second set was 1:40, 1:38, 1:37, 1:38, 1:37. 1:38 average on the nose. Perfect. Last set was 1:37, 1:34, 1:35, 1:35, 1:31, for a 1:34 average for the set.

Overall, I averaged 1:37.5 for all 15 repeats, which was quicker than the 1:39 average in the last time I did the big 400m repeat workout. This is another encouraging sign that I may be due for a big PR at the Capitol 10,000.

We ran back to RunTex with Frank, Jennifer and Colleen. Richard ran partway back, and then turned around to go back to his car (he parked at the track due to a morning meeting). We were a little quicker going back, but still within cooldown pace range. For the day, 7.4 miles.

I stretched just a little bit after we got back, and after some conversation with Rich and Colleen, it was time to get back in the warm car. It was chilly standing around in damp clothing, of course. Another great day at the running office.

The long run on Saturday should be interesting, featuring the hilly part of the Cap 10K course and then the Scenic loop plus a Bonnell ascent. That should total between 15 and 16 miles. I'll be able to run with the normal gang for the first 4 miles or so, and then, depending on what they decide to do, I may be alone for quite a while. I'm hopeful that they'll want to tag along until the point at which I peel off to do the Bonnell climb.

Crystal Blue Persuasion

This was a gorgeous morning, temp of 48 degrees, crisp and clear. The sunrise and morning sky was spectacular as we finished our little recovery run. I met Frank down at RunTex for the Tuesday 7 miler, and we had a pleasant little run around Town Lake. I felt great, and in general it was a fun time. Lots of conversation and people watching, and we even got to hang out with some of the Tuesday/Thursday Gazelles when they returned to RunTex from their mile repeat workout. We knocked out 5 x 100m striders once we finished our run, and I didn't even hate them this time.

Got a chance to talk with Pete and Alex as we stretched, which was a treat. I don't see Pete that often anymore since I've switched to M/W, so we always have lots to talk about when we do meet. Alex was cold, and cut his stretching short to get warmed up. It was pretty cool once you stopped running.

For the day, 7 miles, more or less, average pace right at 9:00/mile. Tomorrow, 15 x 400m repeats. Yee haw!

Mile After Mile

Monday, it was time to get back to work with the Gazelles. A very small crew gathered (10 people, tops) for the warmup run from RunTex. Thankfully, most of them were my pace pals (Emily, Rich, Richard and Brian), so that worked out for us. Jennifer was there, but since she's on the Boston Plan, she had an alternate easier workout. They did 22.5 miles on Saturday, with some big hills in there, so they deserved an easy recovery day. Weather muggy but nice and cool, about 60 degrees. Good running weather.

The warmup was fun, and we eased over to Zilker Park at something like 10:00/mile pace. That was good, because I was feeling pretty tired this morning from lack of sleep. Having to wake up early yesterday cheated me out of my usual extra sleep on Sunday morning. Drills, and then it was time to get rolling. Gilbert told us to do 3-4 x mile repeats on the rolling Zilker course, "a little faster" since we were not doing 5. I led the first repeat for sort of a relaxed extended warmup, and was surprised when we saw the 7:28 split. It felt a lot closer to 8:00 pace while we were doing it. 2 minutes of rest, and it was off again, going the other direction on the loop course. Brian took over pacing about halfway through that one, and we chased him to the finish at a quick 7:01. The third repeat was another Brian-led affair, at 7:00. Richard had a couple of maladies on that one, first dropping his wedding ring (a bad side effect of slimming down with all that running), and then slipping and falling as he finished off the repeat. I hope he's okay. Anyway, I conned the rest of the tribe into doing that fourth repeat, and Brian and I led that one in 6:57.

A very consistent set of repeats after that first "comfortable" one, for a 7:06.5 average pace. That's a 5 second/mile improvement over the last time we did mile repeats, so that's very exciting to me. Maybe I'm due for a big PR at the Capitol 10,000?

The cooldown run was a little quicker than the warmup, at about 9:00/mile pace, but we still had fun. For the day, I clocked 7.7 miles, a good start to the week.

Today's post-run confab was with Rich, catching up with him since he and Christina had their son 10 days ago. Benjamin is doing fine, and his parents are doing the best they can with those early days of the new baby in the house. Sleep is a precious thing at that point. I followed that up with good stretching, and that was the running day.

Water Stop Fun

Sunday, about 30 Gazelles gathered to man the water stop at about the 7 mile mark of the River City 10 Miler. We had a blast, despite the drizzle, rain and chill. It was fun to see a bunch of runners that I knew, including Gazelles and folks from Galloway days. We almost got in trouble with the police because of our microphone and amp (used to cheer on the runners), because we were located around some pricey condominium real estate. When we agreed to turn off the mic, all was good, but it sure would have been cool to have a stop where we could kick up the volume. We prepared water in quantities suggested by the race organizers, and ended up with hundreds of unused cups of water, which were emptied into the street. Anyway, it felt good to give back a little bit by volunteering after running so many races in the fall and winter. I should pick another spring race for volunteer duty, just for fun.

The race was a big success, and Frank even won his division for the first time ever! Very cool.

Zoom!

We had a nice little group today for the Scenic loop "medium" long run. On a drizzly day that was good only for ducks, yards, and runners, we set out at 6:30 for our 11-12 mile journey. Amy was back after a couple weekends of long bike rides, and Emily, Rachel, Brian and Richard were there as well. We started off really easy, and by the first quick water stop at Mopac, we had dialed in our speed pretty well. It was pretty funny going by all the folks sitting in their cars along Veterans Blvd. as they sat with gloom in their eyes, surveying the drizzle and rain before they got out to run. We were well into our run by then, and happily went by them, but we could tell exactly what they were thinking. :-) Hitting Lake Austin Blvd., I guess I got moving along a little faster, and by the time we got to Scenic Blvd., there were polite requests from the gang to back off a little. So, in order to accomplish that, they requested the long-promised bachelor party story from me. I won't repeat it here, but it was a long story. 3 miles as we ran. I suppose it slowed me down a little, but we still moved along pretty well. At the dry cleaners where we got our second water stop and some took GU's, we were right at 6 miles into our day, with some good running already behind us. More than halfway done, the mood was good.

Splits, miles 1-6: 10:28, 9:43, .28 miles at 8:59 (brief water stop), 8:30, 8:50, 8:59, 0.8 miles at 8:45/mile pace. 6.1 miles, 9:13/mile running pace.

While we were getting organized to move on, we saw the Boston marathoners coming our way from Mt. Bonnell. We gathered up with them, and especially took in Jennifer, who was running in her own pack, more or less. That may have sped us up for the next several miles, since they were a little quicker than we normally are. Carrie, Jason, Amy (the other Amy), and Jennifer made our little mob a good bit bigger. Up 35th, down Exposition, to O. Henry Middle School and the last water stop. Richard decided to try to regain some of his hill climbing mojo on this stretch, and had some fun accelerating about halfway down Exposition. We were all a little giddy by now, with the drizzle, rain and general weather conditions. Some faster miles along here, too. I messed up with the buttons on the GPS watch, so I don't have individual mile splits for this short section. However, I think it works out to 2.2 miles, which we covered at an average 8:29/mile. So far, at the last water stop, we were at 8.3 miles, 9:02/mile average running pace.

The last 3.1 miles or so are usually "fast finish" miles. After sort of a relaxed first fast mile, most of us really kicked it in over the last couple of miles. Brian pulled ahead, and finally after waiting a bit, I accelerated. It felt fairly tough, but I wasn't in agony or anything. I concentrated on keeping a steady pace, and focused on catching Brian. I managed to close the gap on him a fair amount, but he finished up the road ahead of me a ways. It was a really strong finish, as it turns out.

Splits miles 9-11.4: 8:16, 7:59, 7:29 (!). Very nice finish. Overall, 11.4 miles, 8:44/mile running pace. With stop time included, it was a still solid 9:18/mile. Good run, for sure. Everyone else finished pretty soon after Brian and I did, and we even did striders like good little Gazelles.

For the week, 5 runs, 37 miles. Next week, I should get up to about 42-45 miles, with a long run of maybe 14-16 miles on Saturday.

A silly stretching session in the drizzly conditions finished off the morning's exercise, and then it was time to think about food. Alex convinced me that a good breakfast would be a fine idea, so we joined the Janiak's for a hearty repast at Magnolia Cafe. Lots of fun conversation, and the food was just what we needed.

A fun day at the running office. Tomorrow, we have the River City 10 miler. I'll be volunteering at the Gazelles water stop, so that should be interesting.

1-2-3-4!

This was the fourth day in a row of running, the first time back to that full routine since Freescale. Everything checked out just fine today on a regular recovery run in the 'Hood. The GPS lost lock a bunch of times, even though there weren't trees in the way. The heavily overcast skies must have done it. I was able to calculate the proper mileage anyway, based on previous runs in the 'hood, but it was a drag to lose the value of the data on the GPS watch. Weather was muggy, but not terribly warm. I just had fun roaming the neighborhood, dodging the garbage and recycling trucks and the kids on bikes (home for spring break). After an easy first mile or two, I ended up with about 5.8 miles, 52 minutes and change, 9:02/mile pace. I felt good throughout, and I was happy to be out there. Saturday will be a 10 miler on the Scenic loop, so I should end up with about 35-37 miles this week.

Now, I've got to go and sit myself down for extended viewing and bracket watching for the NCAA basketball tournament. It's probably my favorite sporting event of the year, with the Tour de France, The Masters, and then NFL football trailing behind. Go Winthrop!

Tempo Race

I had a restless night of sleep last night, and so despite the glorious running weather this morning (50 degrees, crisp and clear), I wasn't feeling up to a big effort for today's scheduled 4 mile tempo run/race. I seem to always have a medium level of dread for this workout, just that you know it's going to be consistently tough for around 30 minutes. Somehow, doing big numbers of repeats at fast pace doesn't seem nearly as daunting as the tempo race. Anyway, the rather small crowd (like Wilke, this workout draws the smallest numbers of Gazelles...funny, that) rolled through the 2.2 miles of warmup, and drills were drilled. Those folks running the 10 Miler on Sunday (Frank and a few others) left earlier for a 7 mile fartlek workout as usual, and the Boston people had some other special workout. That left maybe 12 of us for the tempo race. No, it's not a "tempo run" as defined in a zillion running articles and books, but a hard 4 miler aiming for a negative split coming home. We always joke that Gilbert tells us to run the 4 mile tempo run at 5K race pace, and sometimes it seems that's what we're doing. My "PR" for this run is 28:57, set a long time ago in the fall. I hoped to be somewhere in that range, under 30 minutes.

We toed the line, and Gilbert sent us off with little preamble. There was a large group of beginner Gazelles there, and they cheered us as we took off on our journey. That was actually kind of cool. Anyway, despite my protestations to the contrary, I ran away from Amy and Brian early, and chased down Jennifer for the first mile. I caught and passed Jennifer, and hit the one mile mark at a fairly relaxed 7:57. I was running totally alone now, with no one in the Gazelles to chase, but I kept pushing the pace a little more, hitting the turnaround with a 7:26 second mile and a 15:23 halfway mark. Not bad considering I was feeling off my game before we started. As I headed back, I noted that Brian was closest to me, and I had maybe a 60-70 yard lead on him.

I picked it up a little more during mile 3, and was closer to a hard run now. I still felt okay, but I knew I was really running during this mile. I started playing the mileage countdown game here, and used other runners on the trail as targets to chase. Anything to distract me a little. Anyway, I hit the mile 3 mark with a 7:04 split, which is really good for me. I did not look back, but during the later stages of mile 4, I thought I heard footsteps behind me, and picked it up even more in the last quarter mile, for a tiny finishing kick. It was cool to see a 7:11 last mile split once I crossed the line, for a total 29:38 time, 7:25/mile overall pace. Second half was 14:15, a big negative split, and I held pace well over the last two miles. Good job! Turns out, Brian had closed on me a little during the last two miles, and he ended up just 3 or 4 seconds behind me. That was a big PR for him today. He's getting really strong.

This was my second fastest time ever for this run, and that was great to see. If Gilbert's usual idea is correct, then 7:25 pace should be a target for the Capitol 10,000 in a few weeks.

5 x 100m striders later, we were done. I hung out and talked with Frank, Jason, and Gilbert afterwards, and it was generally a good day at the running office. I felt fine on my third consecutive day of running (for the first time since before Freescale), and all systems seem to be "go" for me. Except for returning to gym work, I've been a good Gazelle since Freescale, so if I'll just go to Gold's tomorrow or Friday, it'll be a great week of exercise.

Just What The Doctor Ordered

No doctor involved, but that Ted Nugent song popped up during today's run on the iPod. Anyway, this week, I'm adding back in the fifth day of running per week, with the Tuesday recovery run. I had planned on going 35-40 minutes, nice and easy. The weather was nice, breezy, sunny and in the high 60's, I think. Since the kids are home, I headed out around 11:00 am, and hit the neighborhood loops. With the GPS, I did some exploring on some side streets previously not visited on foot, which was a fun diversion. First mile was around 9:40 pace, but by mile 3, I was under 9:00 pace, running nice and free. On the way back up Jester, Mike Carter joined me. He had been driving up to run on the trail, but when he saw me, he pulled over and joined me for a while instead on his way to the trail. I suppose I was his warmup run partner.

We had a nice chat as we rolled up Jester. So nice, in fact, that instead of stopping there at the house, I continued with him for a while longer, which ended up adding a mile or so to my day. No big deal. I left him to do his trail run, and turned back for the house. All things considered, it was a really nice run. Legs felt great, and I think I worked the last of the Wilke stiffness out of them. For the day, right at 5 miles, just under 9:00/mile pace. Those last couple of miles with Mike were in the 8:30 range, still comfortable, but not necessarily "recovery" pace. Now, I just have to get ready for the tempo race/run in tomorrow morning's Gazelles workout...

W-W-W-Wilke!

It was only a matter of time, and this week we returned to Wilke for the hill repeats. Frank, Jennifer, and I met at RunTex for the long warmup/cooldown version of the workout, which I prefer. By the time I get done with the longer cooldown run, I've forgotten the actual repeats. :-)

The weather was nice, overcast and mid-60's with some breeze. We had fun going over to Wilke, and merged with the others at the parking lot nearer Wilke. 2.7 miles at about 9:30 pace, nice and easy. Drills done, Gilbert gave us our prescription: Boston people had to do 10xWilke, the rest of us "only" 7xWilke, then 3 backwards hills and 3 shorter uphill striders. That's an extra backwards repeat, but what the heck.

I did the first repeat hanging out towards the back of the pack, finding my form and my pace. During the second repeat, I was moving up a few spots, when Gilbert called to me and said "Why are you running with the back pack?" Dammit, I was caught. So, I picked it up a little during that repeat. By the time we were on the 5th repeat, I had moved ahead of all the regular people except Brian and Frank, who were just ahead of me. There were, of course, some truly fast people ahead of us, about 3 or 4 of them, but I'm speaking of the normal Gazelles, not the superhuman ones. That was pretty satisfying, to actually seem to be stronger than some of the troops for a change on this difficult workout. I started the 6th and 7th repeat with Brian and Frank, but finished each of those just behind them. Except for some gasping on the last two repeats, I didn't hate this too much today.

The first two backwards repeats felt fine, except for the burning in my quads as the hill kicked up at the end of the repeat. The third repeat was going to be a challenge, though. My quads were truly cooked by now. I almost made the last repeat without walking, but I broke just near the crest of the hill and took a few walking steps. Emily, ahead of me on the hill, gave me a few words of encouragement, and I managed to pick it back up for the finish of the repeat. We finished things off with the very short (maybe 20-30 yards) uphill striders at the top of the hill, which actually helped settle my legs down and gave some relief to my quads. It was a serious workout, though, and I think I did well. It may have been my best Wilke performance ever. My times on the main repeats were extremely consistent, with a spread of only 2 seconds between fastest and slowest repeat.

At the bottom of the hill, we recharged with Powerade and listened to Gilbert's hilarious recap of the birth of his second daughter, Grace. There were indeed plenty of people there to help his wife, but it sounds to me like he just hung out until it was time for him to cut the cord.

Frank and I ran back together, and did the slightly longer version that was along the trail all the way to RunTex. 2.8 miles, 9:19/mile. Altogether, about 7.6 miles to start my running week. As I said before, I'm pleased with how this workout went. I always dread Wilke, but maybe I'm getting stronger and figuring out how to do this one finally?

The Hills Are Alive... [Entered 3/13]

Saturday, Gilbert told Alex, Frank, Richard and I that we should do Bonnell for 13-14 miles instead of the 7-10 miles that everyone not doing a spring marathon was doing. It was a bit of a jump from the 7 mile run last week, but hey, we just ran a marathon a few weeks ago, right? This was the end of my first Gazelles week since Freescale, but I was feeling just fine. Weather was muggy and low 70's, not awful, but not great, either. Jennifer, Richard, Liliana and Brenna joined me for our pace group for the run this morning. Volel ran ahead with Frank and Alex.

Off we went. It was actually light enough to see, even at 6:00, so we had fun just cruising along, chatting away. We stayed together to the boat docks at the lake, where we tried to get a drink of water, but the water at the docks was turned off. Schade. We picked it back up, and found another group's water cooler on Scenic Road, so due to the situation, we took advantage of that and grabbed a quick drink there. So far, we were having fun, but the course was turning hilly.

Splits: 9:46, 9:34, 9:25, 9:15, 9:45 (for .72 miles). 4.8 miles, 9:32 overall pace. Relaxed return to long running, I'd say. 1:22 water stop.

The hillier section that led up to Bonnell and that climb was fun, but once we hit Pecos, I started to pull away a little. Liliana turned back at Pecos for her 10 mile planned run. I was alone going to Bonnell and up the long climb, but I just set a steady pace, and actually enjoyed it a little bit. While I waited at the cooler, sipping Powerade and taking a GU, I chatted with Frank, who was headed back down the hill with Anne. Once we regrouped on top of Bonnell, it was time to get going. I was having fun now.

Splits 9:18, 8:48, and a quarter mile up Bonnell at 9:30/mile. 7 mile total, average pace down to 9:24/mile. I ended up spending just over 5 minutes waiting on everyone to get up the hill and regroup, but for the company, it was time well spent.

Over to Balcones Woods, down to 35th, up that hill to Exposition, and then it was time to roll up and down Exposition to the Powerade stop at O. Henry school. I was alone again by then, after having picked it up considerably on Exposition. It's the kind of terrain that I suppose I do well on, resembling the Decker course. As I was leaving, the other guys had arrived for their water stop, but I went on to finish alone. I did another GU there, just for fun, along with the Powerade.

Splits 9:09, 9:20, 8:20, and .42 miles at 8:20. Overall, 10.3 miles at 9:13/mile. I didn't know if I had a "fast finish" in me, but I just ran how I felt from there.

Down to the trail again, I was feeling good. I wasn't blasting it or anything, but I wasn't loafing, either. There was some crowding on the trail, but nothing we haven't dealt with before. I rolled to the finish at Auditorium Shores feeling pretty satisfied with my day. A quick cup of water or two, and a brief dunking under the outdoor shower, and I was rejuvenated. It was warmer than it seemed, and we're still not acclimated to it yet.

Splits 8:15, 8:17, 1.25 miles at 8:27 to finish. Overall, 13.5 miles at exactly 9:00/mile pace, running time. With the water stop time included, pace dropped to 9:41/mile, but it's entirely okay with me. A good run.

I did only 3 x 100m striders, and then we had the big stretch-o-rama on the grass there at Auditorium Shores. It was all good natured fun, and the day was done. I'm happy with how I did today, and I'm looking forward to the rest of Indy training this spring.

For the week, I'm up to 31 miles. Next week, I'll add the Tuesday recovery run back in now that the post-marathon recovery period is done.

More Recovery Running

Today I went out late for a little over 45 minutes of easy recovery running. This is stretching it out a bit from last week's 30 minute recovery run, but still nice and easy. I just ran in the 'hood for the most part, but I sneaked onto the water tower trail at the end of the run for about 10 minutes of peaceful running. It's golden cheeked warbler time, and theoretically, we're banned from the wilderness area until late July. Didn't stop me tonight, though.

Average pace about 9:15/mile, almost exactly 5 miles, and it felt great throughout. Now, will I get motivated to return to the gym tomorrow?

Return to the Track

I guess I actually hurt my left wrist more than I first thought on Monday. Yesterday, it was pretty painful to grip anything with the left hand, so I didn't go to the gym as planned. I know, I could have still done core stuff and the leg weights, but hey... :-) It's a little better today.

Gilbert and his wife had their second child last night at 8:00pm, so he sent Bernard as a substitute coach. Mother and child are both doing well, and the family is very happy.

Anyway, I met up with the gang at RunTex on this muggy 68 degree morning for our visit to Austin High School's track. It was a fairly small crew, it seems, but we headed out on time and cruised the trail over to AHS. I was talking with Richard, and passed the turn for the Pfluger bridge by accident. I figured it out soon enough, and we made our way over to the track without further incident. The rest of our pace group followed me willingly, by the way, wrong turns and all. That was funny.

There was a large group of beginner Gazelles there at the track, as well as Rogue training, so it was fairly busy there. Drills drilled, we were ready to roll. I thought the workout as posted on the website was to do a 600m interval at 10K pace, jog 200m, then run a 400m interval at 10K pace, followed by 1:00 rest. Then, repeat that set 3-5 times. Richard and I did some calculations on the way over, and came up with 1:52 for 400m and 2:48 for the 600's, based on a projected 47:00 10K. So, that became our targets for the workout.

The group was Emily, Amy, Richard, Brian, Jennifer, Colleen, Rachel and me. We did a pretty good job on pacing, and the workout actually felt pretty comfortable. We finished 3 sets, and I managed to convince the tribe to do one more with me. We did them at an average pace 10 seconds per mile faster than last year at this time, which is a good thing. We even talked during some of the intervals.

Splits: (600/400) - 2:46/1:54, 2:50/1:56, 2:47/1:51, 2:45/1:43. Overall pace was 7:27/mile for 4000m of intervals. It turns out that we were supposed to do a longer ladder, going 600/400/200 meters at pace on each set. Oh, well. I think we got plenty out of the work that we did.

Cooldown run was fun as usual, and then I stuck around to do most of the full stretching routine. It's sure different now that the cool weather seems to have ended around here, but I had a good morning nonetheless. For the day, 6.7 miles. Tomorrow, it's time to stretch out the recovery run to 45 minutes or so...

Life In The Fast Lane

This morning, it was time to return fully to Gazelles training. My two week recovery period from Freescale is over, and this week I'm getting back to the fast stuff. Today was one of my favorite workouts, the Meriden 1000's. Gilbert was running late (turns out he was making sure people weren't leaving from the main RunTex), so we scooted out from the Lake Austin RunTex at a little after 6:00. The usual very short warmup run of .6 miles was uneventful, and we got most of the drills done by the time Gilbert arrived. It seemed that on every drill, more people were showing up, so by the time we were ready for the repeats, we had quite a crowd. There are a ton of new beginner class people, so it was pretty full today. It amused me that, now that the marathon has come and gone, we are back to doing the full length on each drill.

Gilbert warned us that we were still not quite over Freescale, so we got to do the first repeat as a warmup, and were to do 3 repeats, maybe 4. I ran most of the repeats with Brian, Amy, Colleen, Rachel and Emily. We actually chatted a little during the first repeat, then got more serious on the last two. It was a nice pickup over the three repeats, knocking big chunks of time out each time around. I was feeling pretty good, and enjoyed the workout as usual.

Splits: 5:19, 5:04, 4:47. Average 5:04, not too bad, about 7:30/mile pace. The last two were in the usual range, so I'm happy with the workout. Next time, we'll add another repeat or two. The intervals are about .66 miles.

After that, we finished things off with the uphill striders and backwards running uphill. The 5 x 150 meter uphill striders were all about form, but you still work pretty hard bounding up a hill. I'm usually pretty good with the backwards running bit, and the first backwards repeat was great. On the second one, there were a lot of slower folks who were either walking or moving very slowly, and I guess I got tangled up right at the top of the hill while looking around trying to see where the clear path was. I went down pretty hard, and hit my left hand and wrist as well as the, um, right hip. It was a "thud" situation. I took a little time to get my wits about me, and then it was time for the cooldown run.

I conned the crew into doing the longer cooldown run, up to Enfield, over to Exposition, and back to RunTex along Lake Austin Blvd. I ran up front with Frank, and we had a nice chat as we went along. It ended up being 2 miles that way, which we covered at around 9:00/mile pace. I think I'll make that my usual recovery run for Meriden in the future.

Anyway, for the day, just short of 6 miles. Except for the crash, I had a great time today. It's no fun to have muggy weather with temps more like early summer (about 68 degrees), but hey, we chose to live in Austin, didn't we?

Welcome Back

This morning, I rejoined the Gazelles for a little 7 mile run on the trail. There was a pretty big crowd, and we had a great time. Gilbert warned us to run easy, and believe me, we took his advice. Lots of conversation, both looking forward to the spring racing season and looking back at Freescale. I ended up running most of the way with Emily and Brian. It was a nice morning, clear and cool at about 60 degrees. Did 7 miles at almost exactly 9:00 pace, so it was a fun run. After spending so many mornings with these folks, it was like "Old Home Week" today, getting back in touch with my running pals. It was good to see Jan out there as well, returning to the fold after rehabbing her injured calf. Once we got done, we did some striders. I guess I did 6 x 100m striders, but I was talking with Sean, and I might have lost count in there somewhere. :-)

The stretching was entertaining as usual, and Shannon got the special Coach attention this morning, as he gave her the extended torture with the hamstring stretching. I laughed and told her that's what she gets now that she's officially a fast runner. We had many new faces there this morning for stretching, so I guess that means a new beginner's group has started.

Anyway, after some post-stretching talk with Richard, Alex and Frank, it was time to get going. All in all, it was a fine return to running with the gang. Monday, it's back to speedy stuff with the Meriden 1000's. I'll be there, but I'll stick with 3 or 4 repeats instead of 4-5, and I won't concern myself too much with pace just yet. It'll be form city instead.

For the week, about 18.5 miles running, 4 runs. Next week, I've got to get back to the gym for two workouts, and I'll stick with the 4 running days one more week, stretching out the mileage just a little bit more, up to maybe 25 miles.

Back In The Saddle

Tonight, I went out for the first back-to-back run since Freescale, a intentionally easy paced 30 minutes or so. I ended up going just over 32 minutes, 3.4 miles, 9:24 pace. Mission accomplished. Everything felt just great. The best part about tonight's run, though, was late in the run, when I was just enjoying the setting sun and the sound of my footfalls, and I came upon a neighbor that I've not met before, who was coming the other way. She looked at me and said, "You make that look so easy!" I thanked her for those kind words, and moved on, but that was really cool. I've spent most of my running life thinking I was a stodgy runner lacking in grace, and here a stranger told me that maybe I was wrong about myself. Or, maybe it's just all that form work with Gilbert that's showing. Whatever, it made my night. I'm looking forward to the relaxed 7 miler on Saturday!

Another Couple of Steps

This evening was another good little recovery run, as I continue the Road Back To Running. I seem to have shaken the post-marathon blues, and have recovered the urge and joy of this simple repetitive thing. It was lots warmer, maybe 80 degrees, but I've got to get back in the heat sooner or later, so why not?

4.6 miles, 8:46 pace, a little over 40 minutes. This pace just felt fine, but I'll be sure and run a little easier tomorrow on my first back-to-back runs since Freescale. I also need to get back in the gym. Now THAT I haven't recovered the joy for yet. :-)