I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- 9.

PM- BTW.  Parked at USU Water Research Center and ran up the canyon.  4 miles into the run, just at the end of the singletrack, I started my tempo.  I wanted 8-10 miles of tempo, but wasn't feeling very spunky.  The first mile was the flatest and had a 6:26, but the next ones were more technical and hilly singletrack, and were 7:37 and 8:27.  The last uphill tempo was on the upper mile of the wind caves trail, so was a very slow 12:49, though that climbs almost 800 ft in 1 mile.  I didn't feel great on the steep downs, so went kind of easy.  Once I hit the nature trail again, I picked it up with some 7:XX's.  It started raining at mile 9 of the run, and the wind got rather nasty, but I had brought a long sleeve shirt and gloves so was actually warm enough.  I started feeling better 6 miles into the tempo, so ended up tempo-ing all the way to mile 14, with some 6:00 pace on the flats.  2 miles cooldown in the rain back to the car.  My effort coming down from wind caves was pathetic, so I'll only count 9 miles at MP.  Total for the run was 16.1 miles in 2:07:48 (7:57 avg) with 2300 ft climbing and descending.  Ok run- not great, but not the flop I feared it was going to be.