faster with age

     We spent the day at the beach in New Jersey. I went for a 7 mile run on a nice bike path there.

     Back in Milford PA today at my wife's parents home. I went for an 11 1/2 mile run. I have been finding some new routes to run around there and today's was the best yet. I ran about 2 miles to a trailhead  where I ran a little over 7 miles of very nice single track hiking trails. It climbs from the Delaware river at around 300 ft elevation up to around 1,000 ft in the first 2 miles then travels along what is called the cliffs trail to several overlooks with outstanding views. Everything is wooded there and the trail is completely shaded the whole way. Very nice run. I finished with an 8:30 ave pace but some of my climbing miles were over 10 min ave. There were only a few short spots where it was too steep to run and I had to hike.

     I came across a big 4 1/2 to 5 foot snake that I stopped and caught and messed with for a few minutes. I looked him up when I got home and found out he was an Eastern Black Racer. He was quite fiesty striking over and over at anything that got near him. There is a lot of wildlife out there that I don't often see including a large Painted turtle we found later that day while taking a walk with my family

     Spent the day traveling home from Pennsylvania after visiting a museum and the federal mint in Philadelphia. We got Philly Cheese Steaks for lunch from the famous Pats King of Cheese Steaks. They were excellent. We got rear ended by a nice Jaguar on our way to the airport and nearly missed our flight. It didn't do much damage to our rented SUV but it did some bad damage to the front of his Jag including a puncture in is radiator. I guess I should count the fast pace running I did through the airport to the last gate on the terminal and got there just as the standby people were getting up to take our spots and let them know the rest of my family was on the way. It was close.

     Ran an easy warmup mile then 2x4 mile intervals with 5 min break between. First interval I ran ran first 2 miles at 7:39 pace then averaged 6:55 for the next 2. Second interval I averaged 6:45 overall for the 4 miles. The pace felt pretty tough.

     20 mile mt bike

     Ran 18 miles this morning. Got out late and didn't finish until 11:30 when the temp was 85 deg. I don't have much time to get my long run distance up before TOU. My mileage since injuring myself at the beginning of July has been in the teens and low 20s until last week when I ran 39 miles. My long run went from 10 miles 2 weeks ago to 14 last week and 18 today. If I was doing the 3 week taper I'd only have next weekend for another long run but since I feel very undertrained [well below where I was before the injury] I'll probably only do a one week taper. I stopped and took 8 or 9  one or two minute breaks during my run today so the quick mileage buildup would be a bit easier on my body. I always seem to end up with back problems when I build mileage to quickly and it was quite sore yesterday. I started on ibuprofen and felt fine today. Ave pace was 7:43.