I can't believe I did it! One more milestone. Last week's 12 was pretty hard, this week's 16 might have actually been slightly easier if it wasn't so warm and humid this morning. I woke up at 6:00. My alarm was set for 5:40, unfortunately that was 5:40 pm. I'm glad I didn't sleep in too late. When I stepped outside it already felt warm. I drove over to Starkey park, already the temp was 78° , humidity was in the 90's, it felt more like July or August. Looks like summer is here. I got to the parking lot about 6:45 and wanted to get going right away. I walked quickly on the path to the bike trail for my warm up. Then stretched at a bench. The bugs were bugging me so I didn't spend too much time stretching. There were mosquitoes and horse flys. I wish I had put on some bug repellent, oh well. Start of the run was much better than one week ago. It wasn't quite as good as yesterday though but I didn't have time for a huge elaborate warm up. I was finally off, at a slow speed, but not that slow, first mile just under 10:00, then some miles in the low 9:00's I stopped often. They have some nice ice cold water every 2-3 miles. I had accelerade with me but I would drink some and top it off with cold water. I made it to the end of the Starkey park trail and was at the Suncoast trail. I went right instead of left like I usually do just to be different. I was finally starting to feel a little bit faster. I went south about 1.5 miles then turned back, went past the Starkey trail entrance to the water cooler. Stopped there for a bit to wet myself down with cold water and chatted with a cyclist. Started out again and felt very fresh. Made it to the next water stop, with 4 miles left to go and repeated the last stop. I took the last miles one mile at a time, feeling fairly miserable at the time. For the final mile I picked it up just a bit and finished it just under 8:00. I headed home and spent quite a bit of time cooling down in the pool and loosening up. I was glad to be able to finish the full 16 miles (I was hoping for 14-16 miles). Looking back on the run now I'd say it went pretty well. I feel like I'm way off from where I used to be but I'm getting back there. I'm pretty happy with my mileage for the week also. Average pace: 8:47 (I did not count all the breaks, I wanted to make myself feel better about the time )
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