Progression Run. 12 miles w/ last 20 min. hard. Average pace: 8:53. 51°F, 51% humidity, wind 3 N, very cloudy and overcast. Shred level 1. We had a small group today. It was just me, Michelle, and Carly. We ran 5 miles with splits of 9:09, 9:12, 9:14, 9:16, and 9:21. Then Carly stopped and Michelle and I continued on for 4 more miles with splits of 9:23, 9:18, 9:26, 9:14. Then Michelle stopped and I continued on by myself for .44 miles at 8:55 pace, then I picked up the pace for 20 minutes. Up till now my progression runs have always specified a moderate effort for the finish, but today's workout called for a hard effort. My moderate effort for the last two Saturdays produced 7:54 and 7:53 pace, so my goal today was just to run hard and be faster than 7:53. I didn't have a more specific pace target than that. I ran the last 20 minutes at 7:29 pace. We encountered a really big group of men and little kids on bicycles at one point. There were probably 30 or 40 people in the group. The strange thing about it was that there were no women. There was a lone man on a bicycle right behind Michelle and me and even though we moved over to give him room, he waited until we were past this big group of bicyclists before he passed us. As he passed us he commented that he was wondering where the mama ducks were, or something like that. **Update** I did Marion's yoga. Man, am I tight! Also, my kids kept coming in and interrupting me. I finally locked the door. I think I can maybe fit in yoga once/week, but I should probably do it more than that if I want to get rid of some of this tightness. | 