I had planned to be out on the trails by 6am, but a late night out with some friends meant that I “slept in” and was up and running for 7am instead. I met up with the later Gazelles down at RunTex and hooked up with Brian for an easy run and some good conversation, tossing back seven miles at a comfortable 9:30 pace. We were able to start off nice and slowly for the first mile, which made it even more pleasurable. The heat had only just begun, but with the humidity coming off the lake we were both sweating pretty well by the end of the run.

Once we finished, we rested 5-6 minutes and then did eight 100M strides, something I want to get into the habit of doing every time after my long runs. A bit of milling around was followed by the usual mass stretching frenzy, once again led by Jay, who I then half-heartedly joined for some core strength work. He was doing a “canoe” type crunch that I just wasn’t getting right for some reason, but the rest of the work was fine.

After that, Marcus and Bill showed up. They’re doing the Urban Assault race together this year, since I’m sitting it out, but I was more than happy to join them for a planning ride testing out some possible route combinations. We went through about fifteen miles all told, and hit all but two of the checkpoints - the last two will add another ten miles or so to the total distance.

So - seven miles, sprints, stretching, and biking - all before breakfast! Not a bad way to start the weekend.

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