It was a great morning for a run. The plan was to show up at Starkey, run with whoever was starting out at the same time and do 16 miles. I showed up about 6:10 and the parking lot was filling up. We had a pretty big group starting out, probably about 10 of us with David taking the lead. Joe G was also there as well as Joe M, Keisha, Renee, Jorge, Victoria and others. I was feeling a bit sluggish so was happy to just trail the pack for the first few miles. We had a brief stop 4 miles then got going again. Finally I was feeling ready to start running about 5 miles and started running a little bit faster than the group. It was nice to have a good group of friends to start out with as this is always the hardest part for me when it is dark and I'm not warmed up yet. As I was approaching my 8 mile turn around point I saw someone ahead who looked not too far away and seemed familiar. I ran up ahead and as I got closer I realized that it was Eudair (one of my first running mentors). I chatted with her for a bit and thought about running another mile with her but I was already at over 8.6 miles, so this was not going to be a 16 mile run. But it was nice and I never know when I'll run into Eudair again so it was worth it. I found my pace picking up after I turned around and did a couple miles at 7:0x pace. Stopped briefly to top off my water bottles then got going again. My pace continued to pick up and I thought I would do one fast mile and then back down. After the next mile I backed down a little bit but was still holding a good pace so I finally decided to just finish off the run at goal marathon pace. I ended up doing the last 6 miles each under 6:50 pace and was very happy about that. As I got closer to the end I came upon the turn around point for a big cross country meet, so I tried to stay out of the way as best as possible. Average pace: 7:28
Hung out for a bit at social hour then headed home for some delicious pumpkin and oatmeal pancakes that Jenny had waiting for me when I got home, mmmmmmmm.
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