7.12 mi, 56:57, 8:00 avg
Ran on Starkey Blvd starting from the little Longleaf church. No drinks or gels with me for the run but a few sips of gatorade before and after the run, cloudy and about 70 degrees.
First mile 10:15 as I warmed up and then transitioned to a faster 8:32 mile. I also had music with me today, a new bluetooth headphone set with built in mp3 player so it works with or without a phone. This one works pretty good but it only plays things alphabetically - no shuffle, no playlists, but for less than $50 not a bad device.
So, I think the music lets me run faster ( I wore this headset during the recent half marathon and I didn't slow down until headphones battery died).
Next 4 miles were 7:44, 7:36, 7:29, and 7:20
At the end of the 7:20 mile things were feeling harder than they should have so I decided I'd just push until the end of that mile. Kept my word and stopped for a break. I gathered myself back together and decided to push it less and just stay under 8:00 (thinking 7:55-7:59). But starting back up the pace didn't feel as hard and without trying I was in the low 7:00's and then with about 0.2 to go pushed the pace a little more to get down to 6:57.
I was a little disappointed that this tempo feeling run was not the tempo paces I considered to be tempo paces traditionally (anything below 7:00 pace for 4 to 8 miles). But I was happy to find that after I thought I was done I found one more fast mile, faster than the miles I had just done.
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