Decided to try my 5x 1KM intervals on the trails instead of driving to the track. Goal pace 7:25, but:
7:36 7:36 7:29 7:35 7:23
Very different experience to running at the track, as lots of weird distractions made me stop running:
* Warmup we stopped so Molly & Katie could play "chase" with their friend Domingo
* The 2:00 recovery intervals between 1000s were all spent looking for sticks, to scrape the giant clots of mud caked to my feet
* The intervals themselves I had to choose between slogging through mud, or bounding from rock to rock, so hitting my 7:25 target pace was about impossible.
* During one of the intervals I saw what APPEARED to be the common native Central Texas Trail Runner, but when said, "G'morning" he replied with "G'Day, Mate!" in an accent that was distinctly NOT from this hemisphere. Unusual sighting of what I *suspect* to be the common East Australian Trail Runner out of its habitat.
* I saw a very unusual bird of prey, the Southern Caracara, for the second time in a week, and then stopped during cooldown to tell a birdwatcher where to go find him.
So lots of stuff to do besides run, but hopefully the mud-caked intervals were on target enough to give the desired training benefit!