Saturday - Boston Soulbuster I (lite)

I KICKED BUTT.

On Saturday, I had fears that my legs just wouldn’t have anything in them from the Marathonlast week.  On tap, was a hard training run, my coach likes to call a “Soulbuster”.  This one was on the lighter side of difficulty, in that we’ve done harder ones, but it’s definitely harder than any regular long run we usually do on Saturdays, so it should not be taken lightly.  The biggest difference being, a Saturday long run, is a simply that: a long run with sometimes a fast paced charge in the last few miles.  A Soulbuster is a tough longrun workout.

This time around, we ran 16 miles with the first half being a net downhill run, which had more than it’s fare share of rollers.  I think it was advertised as a fast and easy, downhill  first 8 miles. Yeah, judge that for yourself in the elevation chart!

That would then be followed by a tour of Northwest Austin’s finest hills to tire our legs so when we got back we’d simulate depleted muscles, then hop on a track and run 4 miles at our Marathon Goal Pace.

Sidenote: I still haven’t decided on a definite time goal for Boston, but I am training towards a sub 3-hour marathon, which is 6:50-6:52 pace.  Today, my goal was 6:52

The chart below shows you the first 8 miles of “fast downhill”, then the next 8 miles of hills.

(click to enlarge)

I really was expecting to fall off the group’s pace once we got to the second 8 miles, due to tired legs, so getting dropped on any of the climbs was not going to be disheartening.  Why disheartening?  I love hills.  When I see a route that’s hilly on the schedule, I get excited!  But today, my plan was simply to survive the return to have a shot at the 4 miles.

We got a nice surprise in that the first 8 miles where NOT the flat, fast and easy downhill miles that were advertised, and instead we rollers with about 3 miles of flat to gentle terrain ondulations.

And then the fun began!

(click to enlarge)

Big rollers on Expositions, fair rollers on Pecos, then the real fun began! Streets names Mount Bonnell, Mountain Villa, Cross Valley, Mountain Climb greeted us for a solid hour and a half.  I was expecting my legs to give up on me at any moment, but it simply didn’t happen.  I hung at the front of the group the entire way.  It wasn’t a goal of mine to “break” everyone, or “blow up” the peloton Tour de France style, but lets just say that the clump of 12 of us, quickly turned in to 8, then 6.  By the top of each climb, our little group was stretched out in a line, with Larry, Rasim(Moose) and I leading the way. 

My legs were clearly back, and I was loving every hill.  I actually kind of wanted more when we were done, and was disappointed that I hadn’t joined Kristen and Ken for 3 miles prior to the start of the run to get more miles in.

On the last long climb (Mountain Climb) Larry and I finally broke Moose too.  And so the hills were over.  

I was really surprised to see the splits we held when Larry sent them over to me on Saturday afternoon.  Only 3 miles were over 8min/mile, one of which was the first one (warmup), FOR THE ENTIRE RUN!  I’m not counting the 9min mile (mile 3) as a 8+ as there was a water stop here, and clearly, he failed to stop his watch here.

We arrived back at the track, done with the appetizers, and that’s where the workout, or main course really began. 4 miles at MGP on the track.  There’s not much to say about running in circle 16 times, other than to note my splits:

 Goal: 6:52

• Mile 1 : 6:57
  
• Mike 2: 6:52
  
• Mile 3 : 6:50
  
• Mile 4 : 6:39
  

Mile 1 looks slow (and is), however the 1st lap of 4 was 5 seconds slow as I got settled in to pace. I opted to not try and make up the time in the other 3 laps, and instead just focused on getting the right pace going.

Mile 2 felt a little tough, but I think that’s just due to repetitive nature of running on a track. But by mile 3, I was feeling great and I knew I had this thing in the bag.  It felt simple, and I felt really strong.  I actually debated on going an extra mile or two at that pace, but figured coach would probably have told me to stop, so I did the workout and just picked up the pace on the last lap of the workout finishing out in a comfortable 6:39, which is my steady state pace.

  *   *   *   *   * 

The best part for me was actually not the entire run itself.  When I was done, dozens of my teammates were still on the track running, or barely arriving at the track to do their 4 mile workout.  I was pushed and cheered-on by non-running teammates on the sidelines, heck, they even fed me water!, so I quickly got some warm clothes on, grabbed my recovery chocolate milk, and hopped back on the track walking along cheering them all on to the very finish.  It was very rewarding to be out there and encourage them, and it was really uplifting to see how strong and determined everyone looked as they came around.  

I loved it, and can’t wait to get to do it again.  Very uplifting, inspirational and rewarding!

“One Team – One Goal”, right!? 

** I do need to work on coming up with more motivational things to say, but from the thank you’s I got post run, I think I did a pretty good job.  Heck, I was even presented with a cool “Thank You” award on Sunday for it!  *blush* *embarrassed* *need to go hide under a table or behind the couch now*  But, how cool was/is that!!