Cross weekend & new friend

I met up with some GRCers on Saturday AM at the "Cell Phone Towers" field for a cross country workout. It was mostly A groupers but fortunately Jimmy showed up so I had a workout partner... and it's really good he showed as the A group ran away from me in the first interval!

Ah, the Cell Phone Towers field. Last time I did a workout there was during high school, as the Sidwell XC team often went there for workouts. Funny enough, they were out there Saturday AM as well doing some sort of time trial workout. That was actually a bit annoying to me, as it brought back memories of being held back in order to "run as a group"... it certainly didn't help my development that season, and I don't remember doing workouts in the offseason as a team. The same coach I had then is still the coach and he was out there shouting times... it would have been nice to have that back in my day. O well, that's the past!

So this workout was 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 minutes @ 10k pace, with recoveries being half of each interval. It was a cold morning, barely above freezing. I like the cold though, and I think it helped as I had a great workout. Was holding around 5:20-5:30s for the intervals... my best estimate based on what Jimmy was clocking. That's good enough, because I want to hold that at both Veteran's Day and XC Club Nationals. It was an effort that was tough but didn't hurt, and was long enough that I got to see if my goal paces are realistic... I think they are.

I was down and out for the rest of the day because of this workout. It was practically a 10k race on terrain I'm not used to running on! Sunday AM I went for a shakeout jog and it really helped loosen my legs, especially my feet, which have been picking up random knocks since I've been building up my mileage. The good running continues! Hopefully a good sign for Sunday's Veteran's Day race.

Oh, I got a new bike! It's a custom-built TT bike from Elite Bicycles, with full-Ultegra spec (except for pedals and wheels) and a comfy (and complimentary!) new ISM Prologue saddle. The bike of my dreams. The name is almost decided but will be unveiled, uh, soon. Not to build suspense, but because it needs the absolute perfect name possible. Plus, no one other than me cares. But it's really important, you know.

Hmm, what to name you?