TEXAS Paul - Out to Pasture - Healing

15 nice miles with Karen F & Karen H.  Mt. Bonnell loop and the Congress Avenue loop of Townlake trail.  Went over to Maudie's for breakfast after the run.  Pretty nice temp and low humidity this morning, but we still soaked our running clothes.  We saw Joe and Angel, and Steve Sturr, and Jason.  

Labor Day Holiday. Worked the whole day building a fence, pounding

t-posts, running barbed wire and square wire fence. This fence is 1,200

feet long, and has been a several day project. A nice cross-training

workout. Muscles in the back were real sore after this one. Our t-post

pounder weighs over 40 lbs.

Ran at Florence HS while my wife and son walked the track.  Prior to the run we pounded in some t-posts for a fence we are building.  Felt good to get out and run.  Last evening we had 2 inches of rain. 

I plan on getting some runs in while I'm in Utah.  I'll look up at Mt. Timp and remember the Pikes Peak Marathon.

I fly to Utah tomorrow to attend the burial of my brother-in-law, the one I dedicated my Pikes Peak Marathon to.  He died of cancer last Sunday.  He was one year older than me.  

Went to Utah for my brother-in-law's burial.  Friday morning I ran 5 miles at the Lehi High School track.  

Ran 5 miles on the Lehi HS track. The whole football team and cheer leader crew showed up as I started my 3rd mile. 1st mile was warm-up. 2nd mile was a 6:58 interval.  I couldn't believe how hard a 6:58 mile could be.  I should be able to crank out a 7 minute mile interval with ease, but not today.   After the mile interval, the football team crowded the track. I did 4 each 800M at 6:58 pace as I ran through the football players on the track as they did their warm-up.  During my last one some of the players started running with me, fun. 

Then went home to in-laws house, had breakfast, rested 45 minutes, then ran up the roads to the Micron plant on the Alpine Highway and back. One real nice hill on that route each way. A nice workout.

Ran 5 miles at American Fork HS track.  Ran each mile faster than the prior mile, ending up with a 7:23 5th mile.  Today was my brother-in-laws funeral, and my legs felt heavy for the first few miles.  A beautiful evening at the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains.

Ran Brushy Creek.  Did the hill loop over across the dam.  Ran all 5 with Joe.  Nice evening. 

Ran quickly at lunch over at Connally HS.  1 mile warm-up.  1 mile interval at 6:46.  0.7 mile at 7 min pace, then tummy started complaining.  Hot, but fun. 

Ran with Karen F & Karen H.  Did the Mt. Bonnell 10 mile loop, then ran Townlake trail for 10 miles.  Karen H and I ran hard the last mile and really picked up the pace.  A nice run.  

A great workout at McNeil HS with the Monday night crew.  Easy warm-up with Daniel.  Ran 2 mile repeats at 6:47 and 6:57.  Karen H ran the first 800M with me on each one.  Was doing some cool down with Karen H and Karen F made it, so we ran with her.  Ran 1100M with Karen F & Karen H at 7:25 pace.  Ran 4 each 300M at 6:30 pace with K&K.  Ran a 800M cool down with K&K.  A nice evening with temps in the mid 80's and a little breeze. 

Ran with Wed night group at Brushy Creek park. 1 mile warm-up with Joe. Drills with the group. Then Bill ran us over on the dam to the starting point, and had us run a speed mile back across the dam and around the loop. Then we did a recovery walk/jog back to the starting point on the dam. Joe and I did 3 repeats at 7:18; 7:32; 7:20. A warm evening in the low 90's got us sweating pretty good. After the run we showered off in the water fountains, a nice perk at Brushy Creek park.

Ran at Florence HS tonight while Lynn walked the track. Easy warm-up mile at 8:50, then picked it up a 8:20 mile then another 8:20 mile and then a 7:44 mile. Temp in low 90's or high 80's. Just a relaxing enjoyable fun night of running. Planning to do a 5K race in southwest Austin on Saturday in the hills.

Ran Cornerstone 5K with Karen H. I got 1st place in my age group (60-65) and she got 1st place in her age group (45-49) and she got overall womens masters 2nd place, a great finish. I finished 34th overall out of 233 runners, and Karen finished 47th overall of 233.

This is a hilly course, 1st mile downhill and the next 2 basically all up hill and the last 0.2 miles to the finish are downhill back to the start line. Temp in the mid 80's in Austin, TX. The race didn't start until 8:30 AM so the temp was rising.

A real fun race that gave me a chance to push the effort a little. Just for fun, we let all the other runners get started before Karen and I started the race. It was a chip net time race. This way through the entire race I set my goal to continuously be passing other runners, knowing that they had a head start on me so I should be passing them. This is a fun way to run a race.

I pushed the pace for the 1st mile hard enough that I figured it was a sub-seven minute mile, and it was downhill so I was convinced of the sub 7 minute pace. I got into my "2-step" breathing which generally occurs about a 7 min pace. When Karen and I ran a warm-up prior to the race we went down to the 1 mile marker and we both commented that this sure seemed like a long mile. Anyway the time to get to the 1 mile marker was 7:31, so I think this was more like 1.1 miles. I didn't know just how far Karen was behind me, but as I got a cup of water at the water stop, I walked for a few steps as I drank and there went Karen by me. As I caught up with her I congratulated her on getting in a good 1st mile, as she has had a cold and sore throat all this past week and still this morning.

I pushed the 2nd mile which started the trek back up the hills and finished the 2nd mile at a 7:57, which was only 26 seconds slower than the downhill mile. This pace time convinced me that the 1st mile was longer than 1 mile, so the 2nd mile must have been a little shorter than 1 mile. Anyway the 2nd mile was a tough one going up hill. I took a 30 second walk break at the end of the 2nd mile for a little recovery.

Continuing up the hills we headed into the 3rd mile. I knew Karen was close enough that she could see me, which was a motivation to keep pushing the pace enough to keep passing runners. As we approached the top of the last hill there was a group of 4 or 5 guys who were behind a woman in a green top. I caught up with them and passed them just before the top of the hill. Then the course turned right and we were headed downhill into the church parking lot where the race started, so we had about 0.2 miles to go. I sprinted out and left the group figuring to put distance between us. This was a nice finish and felt real good to push the last 0.2 at a fast pace.

Karen finished a little over a minute behind me and had run a great race. We checked the finisher board and realized we had both finished 1st in our age groups, for fun. Then we found out she had finished 2nd overall women masters, even more fun. What a way to start your weekend. We won't brag on the times, but remember it was probably the toughest 5K course I have ever run.

Nice evening at McNeil HS, warm but with a breeze.  Nice workout.  2.5 miles warmup at marathon pace.  Drills.  3 repeats of 1000M at 7 minute pace and 100M recovery jog.  Then a recovery jog with Karen F and Karen H.  Went away feeling pretty good tonight. 

Ran at Brushy Creek with the Wednesday night bunch. 1 mile warm-up with Bill. Then we did drills. Then Bill S. had us do 4 loops of the trail. Joe and I did 6:20 (HR 158); 6:16 HR 162); 6:17 (HR 162); 6:06 (HR 164). A nice workout. Temps in low 90's or high 80's. Nice evening. Ready to run 23 miles Saturday.

6:00 AM at the Austin HS tennis courts & Mopac parking lot. Ran a little over 20 miles with Karen H. We went out into northwest Austin and got off into a route that we had not done before. A fun run.  Heart Rate was typically in the range of 145 to 162 depending on whether we were going up a hill or not.  Mt. Bonnell got the HR going up to 165.

One woman called us road hogs. One drunk bum in Austin let go a spew of words that I couldn't understand as we went running by. A fun run. We had targeted to do 23 miles but as we went off on a route that we had not measured, I guess we were off a little. I plotted the route later on my PC using the mapping software at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

Our route is shown at: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1355285

If you have never mapped a route using Gmap-pedometer, you should try it.