V8 and other possibilities

I'm thinking of adding V8 to my morning routine after this mornings "revelation." I was scheduled for 7 X 400m speed work, dutifully reported to the track at school with enough time to complete the workout before Volleyball Camp and headed on down. Took off for the first 400m and ran a warmup lap of 2:10. I'm alternating laps here (run one, walk one) so, after the first walking lap I took off with gusto and hit 1:54. Still not very impressive considering what I'd done last week and the week before. The third running lap I became aware of my gait and I'm thinking to myself, "What's wrong here?" I felt like I was plopping my feet on the ground - no spring, no energy. I couldn't figure out what was interfering with my effort. Finally, looking down I noticed I had on my old shoes, not my nice bouncy running shoes. Now I know why the salesman was so excited about them. They really do give me extra energy and rebound. I didn't feel like stopping my workout to change my shoes so I just muddled through. Wow, I shoulda had a V8! At any rate, the training was successful from the standpoint of hitting my projected times, even getting down to 1:42 for a lap before completing 5 of the 7 laps in under 1:50. All things continue to point to a successful PR effort at the 1/2 marathon in September.

BTW, I got to test out the new sand court at Northwest. The head coach and one of the assistant women's coaches have gotten donations and put together this fantastic facility. So far, one of the two courts is essentially complete (check out the pics) so we scrimmaged 6 on 6 at the end of practice today. It's gonna be a great year.