I ran the Tuesday loop up 2000N with Larry, Wayne, and Kevin this morning. The weather was beautiful. Kevin pushed up the hill and was pulling ahead. I was enjoying the conversation with Larry and Wayne but about halfway up I decided to close the gap then ran with Kevin to near the top. He put on another boost the last block or so and finished ahead of me. It's great to see Kevin running well again. Wayne's boosting his mileage in preparation for the Teton Dam marathon next month and is also running very well. Larry's picking up the pace and mileage as well. It must be that time of year. The sun was bright as we ended the run today. What a great start to the day!
I wasn't planning to run at noon today, but Tom invited me to run 4 easy miles and the day was so nice I couldn't say no. We ended up also getting Nathan, Bill, and Will to run with us. They were going a little farther than four miles and when Tom hit the two mile mark and turned back I was torn about who to go with. I continued with the group, but less than 1/10th of a mile later the combination of a gurgle in my stomach and the talk of maybe going six miles finally convinced me I should have turned back with Tom...so I did. Of course now I was about 0.15 miles behind Tom. We had run the first two miles at an easy pace of 8:44 and 8:33, but I ran the third mile in 7:13 and finally caught Tom. We ran the fourth mile in 7:55 and I averaged 8:05/mi for the 4.25 miles.
The run at noon felt a lot like the 3rd leg of the Wasatch Back Relay. The legs were a little tired and sluggish. Maybe three runs in 18 hours for a total of 20+ miles had something to do with that. I didn't really plan to do that, but hopefully the training will make the real thing just a little easier.
| 