29F to start, 43F to finish...Awesome day to run. This was my first 20-miler back in the U.S. and I got to explore some new areas. I ran to one of the many wind farms around Abilene, and actually found some solid hills! We have a zillion humongous electricity-generating windmills around our town (gee, wonder why) but I've never really seen them up close. Sometimes you'll see an "oversize load" 18+ wheeler slowly carrying a single fan blade on the interstate. Anyway, about 8 miles into the run I found myself on an isolated road with 100+ foot tall windmills on either side, whooshing away. Very surreal, it was a cool experience.
Oh yeah, I had a great run too. Plan was 10 ez, 10 @ GMP.
AP for 10 ez was 8:04. Splits were 8:24, 8:05, 8:14, 8:11, 8:00, 7:59, 7:52, 7:58, 7:58, 7:54.
AP for 10 "mp" was 7:12. Splits were 7:38, 7:25, 7:17, 7:22, 7:19, 7:15, 7:08, 7:04, 6:54, 6:40.
"MP" in quotes because that is more like HMP. Believe it or not, the last 3 miles were into a decent headwind. AP for the run - 7:38.
Sooo, I did this run at my goal marathon pace on average. My time of 2:32:36 is 18 seconds faster than my 20-mile split at Houston. The difference is I was on death's door in Houston at the 20-mile point, but able to run a 6:40 mile into the wind today. Mostly it's the 30-degree difference in temperature, but I think I'm more fit too.
One thing I should probably point out...I just checked the map data, and I climbed a net 200 feet going out and descended 200 feet coming back home. So that skews the last 10 miles a little. | 
