dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night because I was finishing up my finals for the semester and it was Kimia and my 2 month anniversary so we decided to spend a little extra time together after I finished my finals.  So, because of this I didn't run with Sasha this morning, however I was able to get out this afternoon and I had a good run.  I was planning on running about 7:30 pace throughout and I started off just cruising without making any attempt to run quickly.  However, I made it through the first mile in 6:55.  This was somewhat surprising and I think it has something to do with the fact that we hovered around 8:00 pace the past 2 days so my legs were fresher than normal and the fact that I had a bit of wind at my back.  Anyhow, since I wasn't pushing it at all I decided to just keep cruising and I was averaging 6:53 through 6 miles with varying amounts of wind either slowing me down or speeding me up (During miles 3-6 the wind probably hurt me more than it helped).  During mile 7 a strong wind hit me from behind and pretty much carried me through the entire mile so that mile was a bit faster (6:33) after which the wind stayed more normal and my pace dropped down.  I ran the last mile in 6:38 because I felt like speeding up a bit and I finished in 1:08:09 for an average pace of about 6:49.