Nailed It!

My times may disguise tonight's performance. BUT, in my heart I know this session was ALL-GOOD.

More often than not I show up early for Strider functions. Todays early arrival resulted in some unexpected Core Body training lead by Amaila and Jennie. For the first time, I was able to hold all the "neutral" positions, but I continued the modified versions when raising the extremities. The Core training attendees were: Ted, Amaila, Bessie, Jennie, and Bill.

The 2-mile warm up and silly walks were uneventful. The schedule called for: 2 mile warm-up, Silly Walks, 5 x 180/180's @ 5k race pace/recovery jog, and a 2-mile cool down.

Bessie and I ran most of the 30 minute interval workout together. She has this amazing ability to turn up the pace with each and EVERY lap. On the fourth 180 I stopped for water. I vowed to catch her on the last 180. Charteristic of her style, Bessie shifted into yet another gear for the last 180. Catching her was well beyond my ability. Thanks Bessie for helping me get in a great workout! Bessie Rocks.

Coach Matt hit the trails with Club Operations Vice President, er I'm mean, Ted. Coach Matt told me that Ted "schooled" him for their intervals and his legs were dead on the final 180. Worked out good for me, because Coach Matt and I ran together for the cool down. We spent the entire 2-miles talking about the upcoming fall weather. Boy, I can't wait to see 70-80 temperatures again.

I'm tired, yet excited about tonight's performance. It may not seem like much, but I enjoy knowing I put the right amount of effort into a much needed quality session. The times below look odd because I did not stop my watch for the recovery shuffle. Hey, mileage is mileage.... Right? I covered 1.5+ loops around the quarter mile track in 3 minutes and exactly one loop for the recovery. As mentioned above, each interval was progressively faster than the one before... compliments of Bessie "Negative-Split" Wright. Sounds like a WCRH to me!

Activity: Run
Mileage: 7.38 miles
Time: 1:13:00 -- 9:53 overall pace
2.26-mile warm up: 10:21, 9:57, 2:23 (0.26 mile)
5 x 180/180: 9:35, 9:00, 9:32-stopped for water, 1:53 (0.20)
2-mile cool down: 10:50, 10:22
Location: Memorial Park
How I Felt: 8.5.

Congratulations to Coach Matt and his Hood to Coast team, "Houston, We Have a Problem" . The distinguished group of runners were fast enough for 51st overall out of 1000 teams and placed 9th in the open male category. The team had four females, which was just two short of the needed six females for a mixed team. WTG fellow Texas runners. We are very proud you. You represented Texas quite impressively. Oh yeah, did I mention they averaged a sub-7:00 minute mile pace for 197 miles!