Greenlake Gusto and down Sean, down

I went to run with the Greenlake group, but showed up and hour early and decided to run around the lake myself. Its a little over 3 miles and I decided to start my intervals...2 minutes off, 30 seconds on = 2 minutes at about 7.5 minute/mile pace then a 30 sprint, then back to the 2 minutes off and so on. I will slowly build to where my on times are longer. The workout felt pretty good, but I'm still a long way from where I was last fall. I'll continue to do the intervals from here on out and plan on running with the group next week. I'm housesitting on Lake Washington this week, so the lakefront run should inspire me. The Greenlake group will be a great motivator: 1. Mike Jones, a former pentathlete works out with them, 2. several people from the group placed in the top 10 of some recent local races, 3. Coach Wendy's husband works out with the group so I'll be able to get some coaching in with her without any scheduling challenges and 4. there just a great group of people.

All went well with riding tonight, with the exception of my hand height. Laura's still not satisfied with where I carry my hands out of the jumps. Joan was riding Eli and it was Howie again for me. Its always a little scary when jumping a new horse for the first time, but this is what I'll need to do in the pentathlon, so the more new horses the better. I've been riding Howie for three weeks now, but his was my first time jumping him. We did a three fence mini-course several times each direction. Jumping went really well overall, Howie rushes the fences a little, but I was able to keep him under control. The biggest challenge was keeping my hands down coming out of the jumps, but was able to correct this too. Looking forward to higher and/or more complex fences next week.