Time For Some Cross Country Training (again)

It would seem that I should have stayed on my Wednesday speed work schedule, as my return to Tuesday night was met with full tracks. Soccer on one and pee wee football on the other. So Chuck, Charles, and I headed over to the park to run a half mile cross country loop. I was surprised to see Dan H. there after his long 100K on Sunday, but he even did a couple laps.

Our course consisted of beginning on the further end zone of the football field, up the sledding hill, around the baseball diamond, around the parking lot, past the playground, down the hill, past a second baseball diamond, and back to the end zone. It's actually a little over half a mile at .53 mile or so. After two warm-up laps we began 8 repeats. The splits were: @ 4:00 / 3:43 / 3:43 / 3:25 / 3:28 / 3:26 / 3:27 / and 3:21. We walked/jogged a 200 yard recovery down and back on the football field between each repeat.

Although the long uphill run left me feeling weak and out of breath at the top, I found I was able to recover quite rapidly after leveling out. That is a great cardio workout that left me tired but not beat up. We should really do that more often.

The weather is still great so I'm thinking of hitting the local trails tonight so that Mrs. P can join the group trail run tomorrow night. Looks like the weather is supposed to hold through the holiday weekend as well. Let's hope so. I have a long run planned for Saturday and am thinking about taking the bike out for one more long ride too. We'll see how I feel after attending Oktoberfest!