Isn’t it funny how a 14 mile run up one of the hilliest courses in Austin can become a recovery run when you’re nearing the peak of a marathon training program?

My Garmin missed the first mile (or so) of this run - I hadn’t turned it on since running in MA and it took a bit of time to sync up. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that, by the time I got to RunTex, Gilbert told me that I’d missed the group by at least five minutes! I had cut it short on timing and ran into road construction on I-35. This meant that I took no time to prepare but just headed out to try and catch up. I took the liberty of running along the North side of the trail, since its a quarter mile shorter, and sure enough managed to hook up with the pack underneath the MoPac bridge.

It turns out that I was running pretty damn fast. While we didn’t stop long for water, I did slow down to the long run pace (around 9:00 at this point) for the last .25 mile or so of the first mile my watch clocked successfully. That first mile only took me 7:04, which means I was doing somewhere around a 6:30 pace for most of my first two miles! That makes sense, considering that I made up so much time (even with a shoelace retie at the base of the Pfluger footbridge), but damn.

I’m not sure why, but those two miles just “clicked.” It felt wonderful. My legs were doing their thing underneath me and I was almost gliding across the ground. I wasn’t tight, wasn’t stressed, and while I felt like I was putting forth a good effort I wasn’t racing. Is this how the good runners feel all the time? Considering that I was in all probability on my way to setting a 5K PR, and without really killing myself doing it, I’d love to figure this out. And soon!

Anyway, I caught up with the gang and we continued on West up Lake Austin Blvd to our first waterstop near Enfield. From then on it was the old route, just up Scenic to Pecos, to 35th, to Mt Bonnell Rd, up to the top of the hill, a quick waterstop, over to the stopsign on Balcones, back to the waterstop, then down again, coming home on Exposition through our final waterstop. We were told to pick it up once we hit LAB again and I did, even though I was definately feeling a little tired from my sprinting start this morning.

Despite the Forerunner glitches, this was a great run. Averaging an 8:45 pace up Scenic isn’t too shabby, considering the rolling hills and the fact that my HR stayed around 160 the whole time. My actual Bonnell climb time is masked by the waterstop in the middle, unfortunately. I wasn’t picking it up to sub-pace at the end like I was supposed to, but then again I wasn’t supposed to have started out with sub-sevens and no warm up either, so it all works out.

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