Rail trail! I really like this run. For the first 5.75 I ran with Bill and we averaged 7:11 pace. Then I stopped at the bathroom, Bill yelled that I'd have to catch up to them and my first thought was, "like that's gonna happen." My legs felt really tight and it was cold up there (although I like that much more than the heat). When I got to the drinks I waterfalled some Gatorade and then started back up. I could see off in the distance where Chris, Garek and Bill were, so I thought, well maybe I'll try to catch up, then I can say I at least tried. So I picked it up and started going 7:05 pace, then thought what the heck? And picked it up more until I was hitting 6:30-6:40 pace. I had looked at that 7:11 average pace from earlier and thought I'd try to get it under 7 so that's why I picked it up so much. And as a result I was catching them! Passed Chris, and a little while later was about 100 meters behind Garek and Bill. They randomly stopped so I thought maybe they wanted to wait for me? No, it was the 10 mile mark. I stopped with them and Bill told us we were to do a 3 mile tempo then could dog the last 2 miles. I was like seriously? But I did it. I was to hit 6:20s with Bill, so 19:00. I hit 19:12. The mile felt great, then started mentally struggling 1.5 in, then the last mile I was glad to have Bill running with me because I was getting tired and it helped to have him talk me through. 6:57 average pace after 13 miles. Then dogged the last 2 miles as promised, 7:49 and 8:04 brought average pace up to 7:03.
Awesome run, I'm really happy with it. I proved that I am strong, and I not only finished the 15 mile run (which I was happy with the first time, about a month ago?) but pushed the pace. And it got me to 80 miles for the week! Sorry for the long entry.
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