Ran my favorite route today - up through Westridge golf course. The first 3.5 miles are all up hill and then you get absolutely gorgeous view of the valley and the Great Salt Lake. Today we could see all the way up to Emigration Canyon. And then you get to go home, back down hill. I had forgotten how tough the up hill is - it kicked my butt. I knew that I had lost quite a bit while I was injured and in India but today made me realize just how much. It was one of the toughest runs I have had in a long time both physically and mentally, a few tears shed along the way, a lot of pep talk in my mind about never giving up and a little Tim McGraw's "How Bad do You Want It?" and we finally reached the top. The splits going up were 9:34, 9:26 9:47, 8:36 (the last is rolling hills). We stopped at the top to enjoy the view and apparently I forgot to stop my watch because the split on this mile is 13:24 - apparently we enjoyed for a while. On the way back down I saw a runner ahead of us and soon realized we had closed the gap and pretty soon I had decided to pass her before the light. Nice to finally be able to kick it into gear and a little practice for next week. The last 2.2 miles are a little more gentle down hill then how we go up but Paula had a pretty good pace going so I decided to just see how long I could hang with her. I soon realized that we were at a sub 8 min mile and decided to see if I could finish the mile that way. Picked it up and pushed the last half of the mile to keep it sub 8 and finished with a 7:49 mile. The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and finished with 8:18 and 7:57 for the last .21. As tough as the first half was, finishing this run was both important to me physically and mentally. I need to run it more often. I am extremely happy with my splits on the uphill portion because I would have expected all of them to be closer to 10:00 if not over. Ave Pace: 8:57 ( even with my messed up mile at 5) Happy Running!
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