A.M. Ran with Jeff and little James (Ted's son). We warmed up 5.62. After that James continued to the house, and Jeff and I ran the 5 mile tempo. I was not sure what to expect, so the plan was conservative - go out at around 5:40-5:45 pace, pick it up if I felt good, just try to hold it otherwise. First quarter was sluggish - 87, then I was able to get into a rhythm. Splits by the mile: 5:36, 5:29, 5:32 (with a 180), 5:29, 5:30 Total time 27:36.6, first half 13:52, second 13:44. Was happy to beat 5:30 average coming back. 53.5 seconds faster than Tuesday.
Jeff was feeling very conversational and energetic. During the first mile I thought he was going to burst into a song. Throughout the run I had to ask him a few of times to back off because I could not hold his pace. In the last three quarters he let his horses loose and ran 76,76,75 to finish in 27:16, and hitting 5:10 in the last mile. Drafting behind Jeff I could hit 83 quarters fairly relaxed, they almost felt like a jog. However, 82 quarters required concentration, and when it got to 81 it was sufficiently unsustainable for me to have to ask Jeff to ease off. Once Jeff left me, I struggled through a couple of 84 second quarters, and then was able to speed up to 80 on the last one. The struggle may have had something to do with running 81, and then 82 uphill earlier as well as with running alone. Overall the tempo went better than I expected. I thought it would have been good to just dip under 28:00. Nothing spectacular, but after Tuesday I was prepared for much worse. Cooled down 1.38, then ran 2 miles with Benjamin in 17:35 in Five Fingers. T4 Racer - 657.05 miles Five Fingers - 1422.01 miles P.M. 0.35 around the block with Joseph pushing Jacob in the stroller accompanied by Julia running and Jenny on a bike. 1 with Julia in 11:03. My ESL student's son Moroni joined us half way on a bike. He was quite surprised that Julia was running and not getting tired. I told him she could go faster and challenged her to show off. She picked it up, but it was not too far away from the finish and she ran the rest of the run pretty slow, so a slow overall time. Then I told him I had another running daughter, older and faster. 1.5 with Jenny and Moroni in 12:12. Jenny cranked it up to about 7:40 pace in the second half, and Moroni said, wow. Then I told him she had more in the tank, and challenged her to show off. She sped to about 7:00 in the last 0.14.
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