10/15/05: A fun 'speedworkout' with my younger brother Pat...

This weekend, my brother Pat (who lives in Huntsville, TX) decided to come into town for a wedding and spend some time with me. We had a blast: went out for happy hour on Friday night, Guitar Center to check out some cymbals, and an awesome steak dinner (he paid!)...and then he told me he wanted to go running with me and I got him out of bed at 8am Satuday for a 3 mile loop around the Park. I knew he was an 'okay' runner, I figured I would have better endurance then him though...

I was wrong about him being an 'okay' runner. He's actually a great runner. Because he is in the army reserves, he is in pretty good shape and often runs 10 miles at a time in gear...but because he hasen't been running for a while, he struggled with the last 1/2 mile, which I thought was funny. I could tell I was holding him back from the get-go though, as he could probably easy pull off 7:30min/miles even right now. I teased him (as any big sister would) to some friendly competition and told him to run tomorrow in the 20k/10k relay but he said he just didn't feel trained for it...ah well there is always next year (or maybe I could even get him to run with me in the Huntsville Half! next October.)

I think having Pat there to motivate me was the perfect short speedwork session for the week. Although I was a little worried about pushing myself tooo much before tomorrow's race, I know I have been very consistent with my training and that 3 fast miles aren't going to hurt me, and this week has been a recovery week anyhow (only 21 miles). Overall, I was really impressed by our time at the 3 mile mark when we finished (although we should have just finished the extra .1 mile!) and I figure if I can pull off a time like this now (27:38), I can't wait til December and the Bloggers race for me to get a new 5k PR!

The STATS:

3 miles
27.38 minutes
Average pace:9.12/mile

Heart-rate: n/a
Weather: lower 80’s, low humidity.