Larry, Wayne, Kevin and I ran the water tank hills this morning. We took it fairly easy to the base of the hills, with Kevin half-wheeling us most of the way. Kevin started up the first hill pretty strongly. He's always run the hills well, but he's been inconsistent with his training. I couldn't let him be the fastest up the hill today so I went with him. We ran together at a pretty strong pace (for us) until the top of the second hill. At this point Kevin seemed to back off the pace and I pulled away. I felt like I held a pretty strong pace (for me) all the way to the top of hill five. I headed back down to run up with the last runner. Kevin wasn't too far behind, with Wayne not far behind him, followed by Larry. We all ran the last bit of hill five together. What a team! For my own future reference: To hills: 12:16, Up hills: 15:16, Total: 27:32 On the way back I decided to push the last mile. This is the same "fast mile" I ran yesterday that starts near the old WordPerfect buildings and comes down 1600 N then into my neighborhood almost to my house. It starts with a bit of gradual uphill, then a bunch of good downhill, with some level at the end. I ran it in 6:12 today, 4 seconds faster than yesterday. As Wayne said, it feels good to open up. It was also good to be cheered on by a group of 8 or 10 runners going up the other side of the road. Rich Lamoreaux and his wife were among them. We had seen them sprinting down the hill earlier as we were headed up. I think they were doing downhill repeats.
I'm easing some speed work into my training with these "if it feels good do it" fartlek runs. My goal is to maintain my weekly mileage at 50+ and add a little speed work, while waiting for my ankle to get back to 100%. I'd then like to add some "serious" speed work in the form of mile repeats and tempo runs. It's odd I guess, but I'm eager to feel the pain of effort instead of the pain of injury.
I'll be skipping the noon run today for personal reasons, and it's not because I'm lazy. | 