Light At The End of the Tunnel

I'm finally starting to see it...the light...the reward...the big payoff...the rest. Today was our last "hard" workout before the Boston taper begins. We warmed up with an extended 3 mile run from Runtex to Austin High. We had to take a slight detour through Zilker Park as they had part of the trail blocked. Avg pace for warmup was 9:05...It felt good this morning. Much better than Monday. I got to catch up a little with Erine who I hadn't seen or really talked to in weeks. He was surprised at how few people there were in this group. I told him its been slim pickins since Freescale in mid February. Lots of people are taking a nice extended break from hard core training until Fall Marathon season starts to kick in.

In any event, our goal was to do 5-8 x 800 repeats on the track with 2 min rest in between. Coach Gilbert was down right adamant that we don't run these all out. Fine with me! He stressed how important it is to be rested before Boston and not exhausted. Fabulous. I like his thinking. I suppose that's why I pay him every month. His theory for today? If you want to run a 3:40 marathon, run the 800s in 3min 40 sec. Ahhh...the old Yasso 800s. Marcy, Tonya, Amy and I lined up in our track formation and began the first repeat. None of us really have strict finishing goal times for the Boston Marathon. We're all capable of running a perfect race between 3:15-3:30, but Boston is not a PR race for any of us. It's all about the experience. Today, our goal was to run comfortably fast.

800 #1: 3:31
800 #2: 3:29
800 #3: 3:29
800 #4: 3:28
800 #5: 3:24
800 #6: 3:21

Awesome...absolutely awesome. We were consistent and strong. We easily could've hammered out a couple more at that pace, but Coach stopped us while we were fresh so that we could end with some 200 m strides to really open the hips up...high knees, butt kicks, tighten abs.

We jogged the 1.6 miles back to Runtex while we discussed our Custom Boston t-shirts that we want to have made. I've always swore that I would never wear a shirt with my name on it during a race. Now, I'm in charge of ordering them and I can't wait!

Austin to Boston 2006! Here were come in less than 2 weeks. Ready or not.

Nutrition:
5:15am 1/2 packet of sugar free oatmeal and tablespoon of PB, coffee
8:30am 1/2 packet of oatmeal and 1/3 cup of kashi cereal, 1/3 cup milk
1:30pm Chipotle Burrito Bowl with little bit of rice, pinto beans, veggies, chicken, hot sauce and guacamole. (no tortilla, chips, cheese or sour cream), diet coke, small handful of M&Ms.
6:30-7:00pm small piece of bread with brie, cranberry/club soda drink, Jerk Salmon Caesar Salad from Zax.