Progression Run. 14 miles w/ last 20 min. moderate. Average pace: 8:50. 58°F, 38% humidity, wind 4-8 SSW. Perfect weather for running on the Highline Canal Trail. The trail was quite shady and the breeze was cooling. After a week of freezing in the mornings, the weather for this run was fabulous. Today is warmer than it's been all week plus I was out later in the day. We did not have a big turnout for running group today. It was just Michelle and me. Michelle is very consistent and dependable. I appreciate that. She wanted to do just 6 today so that she could go to the local high school Homecoming Parade. Even though I've got two kids at that high school, I skipped the parade. We started out kind of fast and when we were nearly finished with three miles, she commented that it felt faster to her. I hadn't been looking at my watch, so I was surprised to see how fast we had been going. We slowed down a little for the next 3 miles, but still kept up a decent pace. The splits for the six miles I did with her were 9:05, 8:51, 8:58, 9:14, 9:15, 9:10. I kept going after she stopped and my splits were 9:03, 9:01, 9:05, 8:59, 9:00, and 8.56 (for a half mile). Then I started my faster part and tried to keep it moderate, but maybe bordered on hard some of the time. In any case, in the 20 minutes I ran 2.57 miles at 7:48 average pace. About midway through my fast part I passed a group going the other direction that looked like 2 married couples. The 2 women each had a dog on a leash, and the 2 men were each pushing a double stroller with a couple of kids, plus there was a little boy, probably 7 or 8 years old, riding a bike. I had a turn around shortly after I passed them and so then I was behind them. They were going at a pretty good clip because I had a hard time passing them despite that I was running pretty fast. About the time I was passing them, they took a turn off the trail onto a street and the little boy on the bike nearly hit me. I had to call to him to watch out.
During my cool down walk I talked briefly to a woman that I see on the trail pretty regularly on Saturday mornings, and who I talked to even more briefly last Saturday before the race. So I am meeting some more runners, which is nice. Incidentally, there were a ton of people on the trail this morning.
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