The intervals were fun - there were some annoying parts of the morning though.

We start out with a nice warmup for once - averaged around a 9:00 pace by starting out with a 9:30 and ending up at 8:20 by the last half mile or so. The humidity felt worse than it did on Tuesday because we didn’t have that lake breeze to keep us cool. One fun thing happened as we were finishing up the run, we passed a couple of 10:00 pacers and I overheard them saying, “Those guys are really speedy.” That feels pretty good to hear, considering that just last fall I was doing my runs at 10:30.

Anyway, we get to the school and as we were doing our drills and I felt a slight ITB twinge, but it didn’t come back to bug me. Today we were to do 3-8 1000m repeats (I did 5). Standard guidance, to do them at 80% effort with good form and a 200m jog between them.

Time: 4:41 - 4:51 - 4:51 - 4:49 - 4:46
Pace: 7:32 - 7:48 - 7:48 - 7:45 - 7:40

I actually felt like I could have done a few more of these, which is a good sign. By the third one, I had settled into doing a 2-2 breathing pattern from the start, but it was a very comfortable relaxed one. I still need to work on my overall cardiovascular health though.

After the third repeat was over, I noticed a red stain on my shirt. My right nipple, which had been a little sore for a few days, had started to bleed slightly. It wasn’t painful so I kept running. By the end of the series, the bloodstain had moved down the shirt a few inches from the sweat - which led me to believe that it would come out easily (and it did, in just some cold water).

To finish up we did some 200s with an accentuated butt-kick form. This involved a normal kick like we do in our drills, but then stretching the leg out in front to work the quads and doing a fast turnover. I could do two of those three requirements at any given time, but I don’t think that I really got it down. Some of the more experienced guys looked amazingly good doing this and just flying down the track. We did very slow 200m jogs in-between for recovery.

That was about it. Headed back at a comfortable 10:00 pace that became a solid 9:00 for the last mile. When we got to the water I bumped into Rona, an old friend from my AustinFit days, who pointed out my shirt stains. I looked, and sure enough not only had my right nipple started bleeding again, but my left had joined in the fun. Ouch! Its not a big deal, but they’re pretty painful right now and I’ll have to remember to band-aid and/or body-glide them in the future until they’re completely healed up.

Total distance: 8.85 miles

That’s all I have until this evening, when I’m meeting up with a couple of guys to pre-ride the middle third of our Urban Assault course. Should be fun.

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