Good run this morning. Since I have done a lot of miles much slower than marathon pace and a few faster, I wanted to do some miles around what felt like a marathon pace. It's getting light out later and there was some fog this morning and no moon out, so it was pretty dark outside right up until 7:00. I was at Starkey park about 6:45. Warmed up a bit and walked out to the main bike trail. Got going for a 4 mile warmup, starting out at 9:25 pace and working up to 8:11 pace. I stopped at the water stop then saw someone coming. It was Mike. This was good since he pretty much runs at the same pace on this route, about a 7:20. So, I ran with him. We got to his turn around point and I decided to run back with him and add any more on at the end. We kept the pace pretty steady just under a 7:20 average. On the way back we saw some leaves fall along with what looked like a stick fall from a tree up above (about 25 or 30 feet). It was actually a squirrel. Poor thing didn't land very well and I think he might have broken his back and probably wasn't going to make it. We made it back near the parking lot and Mike split off, I went on a little further for a total of just over 13 miles with 9 at marathon pace - well, I hope this is my marathon pace: 7:14, 7:15, 7:09, 7:22, 7:18, 7:14, 7:22, 7:10, 7:10 Temperature was pretty cool at the start but was about 74 degrees at the end, nice only slightly warm with the humidity.
Average pace for run: 7:42
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