Weather - 84 degrees, sunny, humid. Humid and warm made for a tough session this evening. I ran to the track but found it to be closed due to resurfacing. There was a group of 12-15 wanting to do something hard, so Matt lead us to the arboretum for 8 hill repeats. I had to laugh at this, and told Matt that I did 22 hill repeats 2 days ago. I ran with the group to the hill, and then made my way alone 600m south to the dirt road rectangle. The dimensions are approximately 400m length x 200m width, 2.5 times the size of a normal track. I decided to run 400m repeats with a 200m float. Most of my interval work this year has had a 400m rest, so I was upping the ante. Last year I did a lot of workouts on the rectangle, but this year only easy runs, mainly because when I am at the arboretum I have worked the hill. As usual, the wind was brisk, and the humidity made me feel about 5 pounds overweight. On the positive side my legs had little soreness, and my energy level was average. After dousing my head in water I started out. I decided not to time my repeats, I just wanted to flow and not worry about time. Because of the short rest period I went a little slower than a normal repeat, about 87-90 second range, which is ok considering the road undulates up and down and I was always in the teeth of a cross wind. After 2 or 3 repeats my mouth became excessively dry, but I did not stop to drink water because I only had 1 half-filled bottle and I wanted to drink that at the end of the workout. About the 7th repeat I was passed by a stud runner, from the looks of him he was a cross country runner for the U of I. He had a long graceful stride and was running about 5:45 pace effortlessly - he was out for an easy run! I let him get about 5 yards ahead of me and I decided to string along, testing my endurance. I ran 1000m with him but then he turned off the rectangle, and I slowed down for my 200m float. The next 400m repeat was tough, I was spent. At the 10th repeat I finally started to recover and was able to get to 14 before the heat shut me down. Overall a pretty good workout, I kept the pace at a comfortable 5k level, did not push too hard, but I sometimes drove myself into oxygen debt to accustom myself to the struggle. #222 z.m. - #135
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