Bret

AM - 5.25 miles solo early before church.  Very dense fog - did the Freemanville/Redd/Thompson loop for a throwback - have not done it in quite some time.  Usually too much traffic.  Was up late with a neighborhood Christmas party, and then clean up and watching the end of the college games.  Probably a bit slower and creekier than normal today. 

AM - 4.25 miles with Dan on the Milton Trail this morning - the dirt road was muddy and sloppy with overnight rains, but the temp at 40 degrees was comfortable.  We have been going a bit faster in pace lately and today was no exception.  My health app gave me an alert to a trend of a jump in my VO2 max which of course is just a formula and not an actual reading.  Not sure what's going on but I am not complaining.  

AM - 4.25 miles from Dan's house with his dog, Rosie.  Quite chilly in the upper 20's.  Slower pace with Rosie who is not really a running dog, but who loves to greet me when she sees me pull up to his house usually goes with us if she's gotten outside to say hello.   I don't mind the slower pace or the frequent stops for her to sniff or go to the bathroom, but Dan gets frustrated with how she lags behind and refuses to run along side us when she's on a leash.   Would have gone a little longer if he was not at his wits-end with her today.  Very sweet dog though.  

AM - 5.25 solo miles through WC and into the Grove neighborhood and back.  Hilly route - cold and foggy out.   Decent pace, effort was a little more focused due to the hills.

AM - I had an early call at 6 am which pushed my starting time out to after 7 am for my run, which then required me to cut it shorter than normal to get back for other work commitments - so just 3.5 miles on a "much colder than the temperature indicates" - run - perhaps because of a steady wind.  Still running a good bit faster on average the last 15-25 days or so by about 20-30 seconds per mile.   Just noting, not complaining.  

AM - 5 quick-ish miles with Dan at Milton HS - meaning we ran all but the first mile under 8 mins - for for a couple of old guys, that's "quick-ish".   It was actually a surprise because I did not realize that we were running at that pace until we finished.  We were conversational the whole time and I fully expected to see an avg pace of maybe 8:45-9:00.  Perhaps the flatness of this route combined with the cool temps was the reason.

AM - 9 miles with the guys going from Summit Hill elementary.   Darryl texted and said he wanted to start earlier and was not "feeling it" today - so I met him there before everyone else arrived and we got about 2 miles in at an easy pace before hooking up with the crew.  I ran with Greg and Ben who just naturally were runnnig sub 8's and we pulled away from Dan and Darryl but after about 2 miles I told them I was going to run with those guys - which prompted them to turn around to run as a group; but those guys were just naturally a lot more comfortable at the faster pace and were planning to go 14 so I ran with Dan and Darryl and got in a total of 9 at a decent pace.