~10.2 miles @ ~10.7 min/mi

A Texas-sized summer solstice sun begins to peek through low clouds during the 8th 800 meter interval. Shoes are still soggy-stinky from Friday's thunderstorm run, in spite of sitting outside for a day and a half. Nothing dries well at 90+ percent humidity. Best throw them away before tomorrow's flight back from Austin to DC, lest they arouse the ire of TSA inspectors!

A raccoon lumbers across Susquehanna St at 6:10am and two cats play in the grass in front of Winn Elementary School. Spiral ramps lead to the pedestrian overpass across US Hwy 183. Duck through a hole in the fence near the corner of Tumbleweed and Purple Sage to reach the LBJ High School track. Commence running pairs of laps with a half-lap recovery walk between each repeat.

Resist the temptation to stop prematurely as hip adductors, psoas, and less-mentionable ligaments in the groin begin to twinge during the fifth interval. Is the achiness due to too much stretching, or too little? Too many core-strengthening planks, or too few? Whatever! Stick to Lane 2 just to make life a wee bit harder. Ponder the analogy, "Speedwork is to Racing as ...?" (cf. RunningVersusTraining for one answer — remember a racier metaphor for "Mathematics is to Physics as ..." often attributed to Richard Feynman)

Finish with a burst of energy, and take pulse to find it in the near-180 zone. Wave at the pair of local residents smoking on their front porch while watching the crazy codger. Limp home with lots of walk breaks, pausing to pick up a corroded cent on the street. Transcribe timing data for pairs of laps from the stopwatch: 3:56 + 3:59 + 4:00 + 3:56 + 3:59 + 3:58 + 3:58 + 4:01 + 3:56 + 3:54 — whee! And the dizziness (BPPV) that develops that night? Perhaps from dehydration?

(trackfile) - ^z - 2015-07-17