AM to Afternoon: Another weird night of sleeping. For those of you that know me, my mental toughness has been challenged lately. Thankful I run with some studs to support this mental toughness that also comes with consistent training. Did not know if I was running on my own or with Mike. I am glad that Mike waited for me to drag my way to his house to start the LR with him. An LR is rough enough and I have done the last 4 on my own it seems like. It was a good sign to me when at the 9 mile mark I wanted to pick it up a bit and start some pace work. 5:50 pace felt good for about a mile and there was no laboring, so I told Mike lets do that again at the 11 mile mark. At a 11, Mike told me to set the pace and so for about a little over a 1/2 mile we did the same pace. Felt like 70% which is an exciting sign. At the mouth of AF Canyon we hit 13 miles and I wanted til mile 16 to run MP @ 6:30 which I felt fine and no signs of fatigue or laboring. At mile 18 I started to feel the exhaustion from lack of nutrition on purpose. The next 5 miles were a little tougher especially throwing in the "Mother" at mile 20.5 Not an ideal location for that hill in a course that was already rolling enough. Avg. 7:20 pace for the whole run and even had a little at the end where I could stride out at 5:30 pace. All in all a very good LR and sign that my training has gone well and I am starting to feel like my legs really do see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was 39 degrees when we ran so in conversion winter terms it felt like a cool 65 degrees. Cannot beat that. Roads were pretty nice too. Very enjoyable LR and look forward to a good next week... | 