Saturday morning, I was planning to run a 10-mile route with RVG. However, they recently moved their start times to 6:00 AM to accommodate busy spring/summer schedules. I woke up at 4:30 AM ... and just shook my head and went back to sleep.
So instead, Don and I attended the Sam's Club (Frisco-to-Fort Worth) MS-150 kickoff at Texas Motor Speedway at 9:00. We met Smitty, our Plano Cycling MS-150 team captain, who gave our bikes a mini-tuneup and "approved" inspection stickers. Then, we did 90+ minutes of riding around the 5-mile loop. I did 6 laps – 30.2 miles total in 1 hour, 33 minutes with an average speed of 19.5 MPH. Pretty fast! Afterward, we had free BBQ sandwiches, potato salad, and iced tea and enjoyed some music.
The 5-mile loop around the NASCAR track was quite/disappointingly familiar – it would have been nice to do a new route – but it was good to have a "time trial" type of set-up and the loop is fairly flat. The MS-150 organizers also arranged to have police support at all of the intersections with the loop. It felt good to be able tp blast through those 4-way stop signs.
The wind at the venue wasn't quite as bad as when we did the TMS Sprint Du a few weeks ago, but it was still quite cold. After a few laps, my hand/fingers warmed up, but my toes were cold all the way until the finish. :-(
Overall, I feel I pushed myself well. A couple summary charts (speed and heart rate) - note how they are "cyclical" for each of the six laps of the 5-mile loop:
Sunday: We had a great (reverse brick) workout today! In fact, my legs and glutes were a little sore from yesterday's TMS ride, so this morning's race was almost like a brick run as well.
Derek, Don and I did the Fort Worth Runners Club Lucky 7 race; Derek even placed third in his age group! (Top performances listed at http://www.fwrunners.org/Results/2008/Mar_08_Results_Top.pdf)
I had a pretty good run myself. I completed the mostly flat 7-mile course in 55:44, which works out to a 7:58/mi pace. For reference, this is only 1 second per mile slower than that pace for my personal best 10K (6.2 miles). So I am happy about my performance.
Afterwards, Matt joined us for a roughly 25-mile out-and-back bike ride from the River Plaza parking lot to the Benbrook Park gate (unfortunately, none of us brought any cash along so the $1/person entry fee was still too rich for our blood :-P). The ride out to the lake was at a relaxing clip – partly because we were recovering the run and partly because it was almost all uphill. The return trip was mostly downhill and Matt and I high-tailed it back at a 20+ MPH pace.
After dropping off Matt back at the parking lot, I continued on for about another 5.5 miles before coming to a closed gate. Turned around and headed back to meet Derek and Don and ended up with a mileage total of just over 36 miles.
MotionBased links:
Run: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5128587
Ride: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5128588
So a weekend full of good training rides and a solid run. However, I *really* need to get in a 50+ mile ride in the very near future – hopefully this coming Sunday. After that I need to start tapering for my half-Iron at the end of this month. Less than 3 weeks to go! :-P
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