13.62 mi, 1:57:48, 8:39 avg
I ran on the Starkey Park bike trail out to the Suncoast trail. I was supposed to meet Daisy at 6:45 but was about 10 minutes late.
Started off kind of slow with thoughts of not being sure how I was going to run very far at all. Slowly increased my speed. At about 3 miles I started running into people who were turning back from their 7 mile run. I saw Daisy, stopped and said hi and then continued out to the 4 mile water stop. Saw Stan there coming back from his 10 mile run. It was getting hotter but the cloud cover was holding up keeping most of the direct sun off of me.
At some point my garmin fell off - strap had been partially torn and finally broke through the rest of the way. Picked it up and put it in the pouch on my handheld water bottle. So, for the rest of the run I couldn't really look at my pace unless I was stopping.
Made it out to the Suncoast trail and stopped at the water stop (about 6.8 miles out altogether). Turned back and tried to hold a steady pace. Stopped at the 5.5 mile water stop and chatted a little bit with the park worker filling up the water jug. He was telling me about how he had moved down here from Pittsburgh after quitting his job up there, letting go of things that didn't matter so he could come down here and enjoy life. He told me to fill my water bottle from the jug he was about to swap out because it was colder (sounded half filled with ice, so nice and ice cold).
So, the rest of the run was good although a little bit of a struggle. Last mile was just under 8:00 pace (which I did not see until after the run was over).
I ran into Lisa who was out on her first ever 50 mile bike ride (beating her old longest ever of 33 miles).
Happy overall with the run, feeling accomplished that I managed once again to get over 40 miles for the week and that I didn't turn back when I didn't feel like going on further.
(wore my old brooks launch shoes which I had already "retired" but like them better than some of the other shoes I've got currently especially for long runs - especially the new pair of Brooks PureFlow.)
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