Rollers

I thought I was slow on hills. I thought.

Last night we did a workout called Rollers, which by the name of it means that we would be going through rolling hills. I was both dreading and looking forward to it.

After a 2 mile warm-up from the Lake Austin store to Pecos, we began the hard part of the workout. We did 1 min hard/1 min easy for about 2 miles until we got to 35th and Exposition. I thought the first few intervals were kind of fun, but after we got to the uphill climb past the park and turned on Northwood, my legs began to feel like bricks.

I had been put in a group with Myles, Julia, Nedra, Kirsten Bruce, and Scott. I am pretty much Scott's partner on all of these workouts and he is proving to be a good push for me. Scott and I stayed to the back of this group because they are all faster than us.

By the time we got to Burger King at Jefferson and 35th, Myles, Bruce, and Nedra had caught Javier and Charles from the group ahead. Julia, Kirsten, Scott and I left the water stop for a steady state 15k pace run back to RunTex. We had about 2.5 miles to go.

I thought I was tired after the hills, but apparently my legs are stronger than I think. I kept Kirsten in view the whole way, and she looked way more tired at the stoplights and at the finish than I did. Scott sandbagged at first and then caught me on the home stretch. I was glad to finish with the two of them.

You know what is weird, though? The total distance of this run was 7.1 miles and I finished in 1:00:20. That is an overall 8:30 pace!! I must have been hauling on the rollers and the steady state to make up for the warmup and the easy stretch between Exposition and Jefferson. There is no way I was close to that on the easy stretches.

Way to go me!