This was more of a workout than I really expected it to be. If you take a look at my last time to do this workout, you will see that I varied from 7:40 to 7:20. The same thing happened today, but it wasn’t quite as pleasant. First, it was about twenty degrees warmer today with, oh, it must have been 80% humidity. My clothes were soaked as soon as I started to sweat, and they never dried off. Next, our warmup was done at an 8:15 pace for most of the way. Finally, I felt stiff as a board when we began the run to Zilker. But enough with the excuses.

We were supposed to be doing these comfortably. The first mile was pretty nice, and clocked off at a very basic 7:49. After our two minute recovery, mile two went by in 7:22. Mile three was harder, I came in at 7:27 but had felt a bit of a twinge in my left quad about halfway through. On the fourth mile, I felt my quad ache again going up the long hill and backed off a bit, turning in a relatively slow 7:38.

My heart rate was dropping quickly down to 130-140 during the recovery periods, which is a good sign. I’d head right up to the mid 160s after the start, which is fine, but the monitor did confirm that after a hard push uphill when I’d get into the 180s I wasn’t dropping down until I finished the run, even after the course levelled back out. I’m not sure yet how to take that information, but it is interesting, and confirms my guesses from last time.

Three of our pod went off to do a fifth lap, but I did a bunch of quad stretching instead and headed back with Shannon at a slow jog. We walked some since she’d been having stomach issues, and turned in an average 11:30 pace for the trip back.

So. Not quite what I was hoping for, although if it wasn’t for the quad issue (which was almost certainly just due to an inadequate warmup) I had managed to shave about 15 seconds per mile off my pace on a significantly harder day, so I’m feeling pretty good about that in retrospect. Just to be safe, I’m taking a day off from running tomorrow. I don’t think I really need to, but better safe than sorry as the saying goes.

Popularity: 3%