It was not a bad week running-wise. Tuesday when I showed up for the gazelle workout it was ridiculously hot, and there was almost not breeze. The plan was to run to Austin High, do 3000m for warm up, and then a bunch of core exercises. I decided I wasn't tough enough to run all those laps on the burning hot, complete unshaded track, so I opted to take the long way around. The trail was pretty deserted (I've got to believe due to the heat), but it was still dusty thanks to the lack of rain. Whenever the occasional bicyclist rode by, you wished you had something to cover your mouth.

Once I arrived at Austin High, I did one lap and it was as miserable as I thought it would be. Maybe I wasn't just happy to be there. In fact, running on ridiculously hot days like that day (~100 degrees) really makes me question my sanity. Anyway, Gilbert decided it was too hot to stay at the track, so we ran back to Runtex and did our core work there. Thanks Gilbert! I ran back the long way as well figuring I needed a little more mileage than I'd been putting in, and was surprised at how hard it was.

Wednesday at lunch DV and I ran about 5 miles on the greenbelt, from 360 to sculpture falls and back. I tried to pre-hydrate that morning at work, but I still felt tapped from the heat. Neverthelss, it was a nice run... no scary spider webs this time. Despite all the time I've been putting in on the trail, I'm still finding it tough on the quads.

I missed Thursday's workout because I was stuck at work, so that brings me to this morning. I was hoping to run on the greenbelt trail again, but no one seemed game, so I figured I'd try to get up at 5:45 to run with Pat. Seriously, that's earlier than anyone needs to be up, but I figured with the earlier start I'd be able to get home and get in a nap and start my day at around 10 if I didn't piddle around too much. See? Sometimes I can be a glass-half-full guy...

So I met Pat at Barton Springs (who was waiting with a couple of Dans) at just after 5:45 (I'm never on time that early in the morning) and was rewarded for my effort with temps in the low 70's. Woo-hoo! We ran to RunTex to meet the rest of the Gazelles group which, by the way, was GIGANTIC this morning. Someone had made cute little pace group signs, which was a great idea.

Once we all took off, it was mob scene. It was literally like the start of a race with so many people leaving at once. I was going to try to run an enhanced 10-mile loop with Pat, which would have ended up being 12-14 miles with the additional mileage added on by going under the dam and looping back, but ended up doing the standard 10-mile loop. I was happy with that, since it had been long time since I had done 10 miles. My mile splits were pretty good too. I didn't get the first couple of miles, but I know they were very slow. After mile 3: 8:11, 7:39, 7:36, 7:43, 7:27, 7:13, 7:26. Relative to my pace in recent runs, those splits are smokin! It should be noted, however, that there were a lot of breaks: stop at RunTex after the first mile to meet with the Gazelles, stop at bathroom at mile 5 and also get water and gu, stop at gazelle water stop at mile 6. All of those breaks were pretty long, especially that last one since DV ran up while I was drinking and chatted a bit, and then Shannon (who looks awesome and awfully comfortable so late in her pregnancy) ran up as DV was going away, which just meant more socializing, less running. Maybe all the stops put me in a good mood, because I didn't have as many of the usual feelings of utter despair as I got deeper into the run. I'm hoping to have more runs about this pace this summer, but I'm not going to bet on it.

Oh yeah, Barton Springs afterward - of course.

The other big running-related news for the week is that I'm the proud owner of 4 new pairs of shoes. This inundation of running merchandise somehow provided me with a little more motivation this week. The new arrivals were two pairs of mizuno wave rider 10s (in hideous white and red, $55/pair from runningwarehouse.com), and two pairs of asics nimbus 9s (in not-too-atrocious silver and blue, $80/pair from runbargains.com). They were discounted because there are newer versions of each shoe, but they were such good deals, I'm wondering if I should get more. (Normal prices: $90 for the mizunos, $120 for the asics)

On the home front, el beskrownito has been sleeping especially well this week (I'm sure I just jinxed myself for tonight), which we're hoping he'll carry forward into the the second quarter of his first year (he's 3 months old today).

Finally, ugh, the Euro Cup is killing me. The first three games in the quarter finals have been upsets, and genuinely surprising upsets at that. (Well, maybe not the Germany win as you can never count them out.) I'm most distraught about the Dutch loss to the Russians today. To say the Dutch had been playing awesome might be understatement, but they met a young and unintimidated Russian team that played very clever soccer, and lost in overtime. Just to add insult to the whole event, I missed the second half and overtime because our power had gone out during a random but extremely intense afternoon thunderstorm. At this point, I'm feeling some apprehension that Italy will find a way past Spain tomorrow and end up winning the whole thing. Ugh, that's such a depressing though that it almost overcomes that satisfaction that I'm still feeling from this morning's run.