Go, you chicken fat, go away!

0.81 mile warm-up with Mary.  11:12 avg. pace.  I'm hoping she can maintain an 11 min. pace for her race.  Last year she did 13:20.  Below are my splits for the three miles I did alone.

Time: 23:52 (avg. pace 7:58)

Splits: 8:07, 8:02, 7:44 (first time I've done negative splits -EVER!)

Finish time: 7:30am

Temp: 41

It's the 12th today, and I've lost 12 lbs.  If my math is correct, that's a pound a day.  If I keep this up for two months, maybe I'll lose 60 lbs!

I ran with Ginger this morning.  Since we started out so fast, I didn't have the energy to finish strong.  There would be no negative splits today.  I was pleasantly surprised when I let her go at the corner with about a tenth to go and she didn't run off.  I might someday go without a leash if it weren't for the fear of her running out in front of a car.

Time: 24:40 (avg. pace 8:22)

Splits: 8:07, 8:42, 7:53 (8:26)

Finish time: 7:30am

Time: 50:02 (avg. pace 8:55)

Splits: 8:26, 8:44, 8:57, 9:17, 9:05, 5:34 (9:03)

Finish time: 7am

Temp: 41

Decided to take it nice and easy today.  My last 2-1/2 miles were above 9 min. avg.  I'm okay with that.

I thought about changing my blog name to 'For a Brief Moment I was Ahead of Sasha on the Mileage Board', but it sounded too long.

I did a 0.81 mile warmup with Mary.  She took it nice and slow until the kick at the end.  She's got a pretty good kick.  I was having to push it to keep up with her.

Then I decided to run a mile as fast as I could based off a conversation I had with Sasha on his blog yesterday.  I ran it in 7:05.  I was hoping I would be at least in the sixes.  Oh well.  I just haven't trained to maintain that level of speed for so long.  I started out at a strong gait, but it didn't last long.  Some people tell me that I need to do speed work in order to take it to the next level.  Sasha says to work on your base miles.  I've been averaging less than 20 miles a week, so I can't testify either way.

These pictures are from last Saturday when I took my daughter running.  I'm shaving the beard off today.  Although it makes me look rather distinguished and quite handsome, it's pokey.

This morning I went running with three other Ragnar teammates of mine, two of which are fellow bloggers - James W and Camille.  It was a nice run.  We started out real easy for the first 4 miles, then we picked it up.  I ran with James most of the time.  This was the first time I met James.  I've talked to him before on the blog, and I have a picture of us standing next to each other at a race from before I knew him, but it was nice to finally "really" meet him.  He's a cool guy and has a lot of knowledge about running.  Camille and Jared were right behind us most of the way.  They would catch up to us at the stop lights.  Then with about a mile and  a half to go, we picked it up pretty good.  With half a mile to go James was about 10 feet ahead of me.  That's out of my audio range.  He said something that I imagine was, "Is it okay if I leave you in the dust now?"  I yelled, "Yeah!"  He finished pretty strong.  I didn't finish as strong as I would've liked.  I tend to do that when I run with other people.  Below are my splits.

Time: 54:57 (avg. pace 8:41)

Splits: 9:19, 9:12, 9:18, 8:42, 8:16, 7:40, 2:30 (7:43)

Temp: 50

I started my Garmin about a tenth of a mile after we started running.  According to James we did 6.42.  Mine said 6.32.