faster with age

     I wanted to do a tempo run today but it's a little hard to find a road that isn't covered in snow. I figured I could go out and run on the highway but I don't enjoy it much with traffic zooming by at 70 mph. I had noticed a gravel road nearby that had strips of dry dirt exposed down most of it from the plow. I guess it doesn't get packed down so much before the plow hits it because it doesn't get much traffic. I ran back and forth on a 2 mile stretch and was able to run on dry gravel for most it. I had to keep switching from side to side to keep hitting the best dry strips. I was probably only running on snow about 15 % of the time. I ran a 2 mile warmup at around 7:30 pace. Then did 8 miles at 6:44 ave pace with a 4 min break at the halfway point. It was a bit tougher than I expected especially the last few miles. It may have had to do with the fact that it was about 15 deg [which actually feels pretty good lately] and running on the gravel is usually a bit slower. Overall pace for 10 miles was 6:53.