<singing talent=”low”>Oh what a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way.</singing>

Today’s run was very pleasant indeed. I was a little concerned that it wasn’t going to happen at all though. We had plans to go down to Luling to visit the Watermelon Thump today, and we worked out last night that I’d have to be back by around 8:30 to leave our house in time to be there for the parade. I figured that I could just about do that as long as I didn’t dawdle, but it was a close thing.

That’s why I was a little confused when I didn’t find my running group this morning. I went down and parked at RunTex like I normally do, and encountered a huge crowd - most of whom I’d never seen before. From reading their shirts, I realized that they were Steve’s Rogue Running group, which is growing like a weed! Gilbert had mentioned something about meeting down by the zero mile marker, so I waded through the masses and jogged down there, where I met … one person.

We chatted for a while, and luckily at almost ten after six a huge herd of runners came thundering by. Steve’s guys were out in front, but Gilbert’s group was following close behind. I’m still not entirely sure where they were hiding, but I hooked in with Jason, then fell back to run with Mike and Carrie as we warmed up on the trail. I stuck with those two for the next twelve miles, and Jason even rejoined us about five into the trip after he took a quick anti-hydration break and lost his pack.

The plan for today was to do fourteen miles up Mt Bonnell and back. This has to be one of my favorite runs - some steepness both up and downhill, some rollers, some flat, and all surrounded by some very pretty scenery, both natural and man-made. I want to average around a 9:30 pace for these long runs, including rest stops.

The first two miles are on the trail heading West, then we took a quick water stop and continued out on Lake Austin blvd towards the boat docks: 9:16 - 9:33 - 10:05 (water) - 9:57 (water). Those miles are relatively flat and comfortable, they make a good warmup.

From there, we head into the hills: 9:22 - 10:42 (water) - 10:00. We hit the top of Mt Bonnell right around the seven mile mark, and I’m pretty happy with my time there. We slowed down somewhat, but kept a decently hard effort without doing anything stupid.

At about 7.25 we got to our turnaround point, then paused to drink some Endurox and rolled back down the hills we’d just slugged our way up: 10:58 (water) - 9:34 - 8:46 - 9:39 (water). We were able to get fluids of some sort about every 2.5 miles, which was really nice on what turned into a pretty warm day.

Our course wasn’t a complete reverse of the way out, we’d sailed down Exposition instead and met up with Lake Austin just after the 11 mile point, just in time to for a nice pick up to get us back to RunTex: 7:42 - 7:48 - 7:39 (7:58 pace). That was a really great way to end the run; Jason had gone on ahead, Carrie was a little ways behind, but Mike and I were jockeying back and forth in a very friendly manner as we came down the final half mile.

I’m pretty happy with the way my heart rate stayed low too, even through the hills. I ran a good pace, had some good conversation with good people, and picked a really great way to start the weekend. My final stats were 13.96 miles in 2:11:02, which gives me a 9:26 average pace (including traffic, water stops, etc), so that worked out just fine.

My only regret is that I had to skip the drills and stretching at the end due to a time crunch - I worked on stretching somewhat this morning and will do a full session this afternoon as well, which will hopefully make up for it somewhat.

Here’s hoping that your weekends are going as well - at least your running!

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