I haven’t been able to get much running in lately - too busy between my work commitments and my home life. So my long run for this week was only 8.5 miles when I really wanted 10. At least that’s better than nothing… We had some house guests, so I took off early and just ran a 4.25 mile loop around the neighboorhood. Our subdivision backs up onto a much more “rural” one, which has very little traffic and some pretty scenery. Its good to run in.

Mile one was pretty nice, did a 10:30 warmup pace. Actually, the whole first lap was something of a warmup, because I was feeling pretty stiff and had been out the night before at a Robert Earl Keen concert (yeah!) down in San Antonio. Near the end of mile two there’s an impressive hill climb, but I did it at 9:30, which is better. I paid for it though, mile three was done at 10:00. Halfway through mile four I got a phone call, so I had to stop, dig out my phone from my pak, etc - it was Marcus, who was up and ready to join me if I was near the house. I turned around and went back to the house (I was pretty close at the time). Even with the 2:30 phone call, I clocked an 11:00 mile four and turned out for an 8:32 pace back to the house.

So now I pick up Marcus, and get ready for lap two. Mile one went by in 9:50 (inluding two stops to tighten shoelaces), mile two was a 10:30, and included that big hill. That’s a misleading number, since we pushed each other really hard to get up that hill - doing under a 9:00 pace all the way - but then we had to stop and walk for about two minutes at the top. Mile three was 10:40 with some stretching for Marcus - his shins were bugging him and its not worth running on an annoyance that could become an injury, especially for a slow weekennd run. Mile four was a 9:40, and the home stretch was done at 8:30 once again.

So, all in all a good run.

Miles run: 8.5
Time running: approx 1:26
Overall pace: 10:07

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