Morning: I ran today with my friend Barry Smith. We planned a long run on the Pocatello marathon course so I stashed a car at Century High School last night. We drove up to the top of Buckskin at 6:15. It was around 20 degrees but we had a very cold headwind when we headed SouthEast. We started down the backside and after 3 miles Barry suggested I pull ahead as he was a little behind me. We agreed that I would do the 1/2 mile out and back (1 mile total) on Rapid Creek and he would not so that should make us finish the same. I started doing the math in my head and realized I would need to average :25/mile faster than him to make up the mile by the time we finished. I was cruising along around 6:30-6:35/mile for a long time. I was finally able to see him ahead of me when we had a long straight stretch going in to Inkom. He was running really well and I was not closing the gap very quickly even though I was still pulling 6:45-6:50/mile at this point. I just kept plugging away but we were playing a great game of cat and mouse for the next 6 miles. I ended up finishing about :15 seconds behind him. It was exactly 22 miles to my car. I did 22.00 miles in 2:31 for a 6:52 average. He did 21.00 miles in 2:31 for a 7:11 average, probably his BEST run ever as he has never broken a 3:30 marathon. This was an awesome finish to a 102+ mile week. Yes, it was cold and windy but we pushed each other very nicely for a great long run.
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