Slightly longer Long Run

On a lovely rainy, misty, drizzly morning, temps in the high 40's, I set out with Henry at 7:00 for a 7 miler on the I-35 loop. I had intended to take it pretty easy, and decided to let Henry set the pace. It turns out that he was in a frisky running mood, and we were a good bit quicker than I had planned. We cheerfully greeted all those runners out on a nasty day like today, figuring they deserved it after getting out in the weather. The trail was full of small puddles, but nothing we couldn't hop over. We had a couple of miles in the second half of the run that went down to the 8:35 range, and ended up with 6.9 miles at 9:01/mile average pace. A nice brisk run. Legs felt just fine, and it was altogether one of those fun runs, where we were happy to be out there, despite the conditions.

Afterwards, we met up with the rest of the Gazelles for the stretching session, and then we all took some group pictures. It was fun to hang out with everyone after the few weeks of enforced exile from GazellesWorld. Next week, I start back up with the regular workouts, taking it easy at first. Instead of the easy 45 minute recovery runs set on Wednesdays, I'm going to substitute the cycle/weights workout. At least for now. I may end up doing that run as well, but not for several weeks.

For the week, 19.3 miles, 4 runs, 3 weight workouts. I'm volunteering for a race tomorrow morning, so I'll get in a little bit of cycling to and from the race site.