faster with age

     Got out to run around 5 pm. No rain and a nice day. About 1 mile into the run I was passing the house of a 14 year old neighbor and friend of my sons that saw me and came out and joined me. He just finished up with jr high track season where he ran the 800 and some relays. He wondered how far I was going and I told him 13 miles but he could turn around any time. He told me he was going the whole distance. I asked him what the farthest he had run and he said he had done a total of 4 miles once in practice but usually 2. We were running about 8 min pace and he seemed to think we ought to be going a little faster. The first mile he finished with me was 8:02. We finished the second mile and the pace had slowed to 8:44. I told him he could turn back any time but he insisted he was going the distance. The next mile we finished in 9:11 [there is a pretty good 1/4 mile hill in this mile]. At that point he decided he had had enough and turned back. from that point I ran the next 9 miles at 7:49 ave pace.