Quick Long Run

This morning, we got to "sleep in" and meet at 6:30 instead of 6:00 for our 10 miler. Richard was out of town, along with Jan, but Amy and Volel were there for the run this morning. The route was the I-35 loop on the trail and then the adventurous extra bit snaking along and up the Mopac overpasses, to Enfield and Exposition and finally back to RunTex. There's a good bit of hilly running, most of it in the last 5 miles of the run.

I intended to run nice and easy, but it seems that we just are going fast nowadays. Amy and I were the very last runners in the whole pack for the first couple of miles, with Volel just ahead. Margaret and Kim were around us as well. It was overcast, which was okay with me. We reached the water stop at the Mopac footbridge, 4.8 miles in, at a brisk average pace of 8:45/mile. Too fast, really, but not stupid fast. I think I got caught up running with Kim, forgetting to temper my pace for this longer run. Oh, well.

After an efficient 1:45 water stop, we zig zagged up underneath Mopac, heading for Enfield. The trail was blocked by an official barrier, so we had to do some cross country efforts, which were a lot hillier than we usually do on this route. Our little pack of runners stayed together pretty well despite the challenging course, and huffed and puffed our way up Enfield to Exposition and the Powerade stop at O. Henry middle school. Appropriately enough, Henry was there, riding his bicycle on a wind trainer as he waited there with the Powerade. He's still working through his leg problems, but that was pretty clever of him to combine a workout with his duties as Powerade maestro. That was 6.6 miles at 8:50/mile average pace, as we worked through the tough couple of miles there. That was a 1:48 water stop, by the way.

From O. Henry, we're supposed to pick it up all the way to RunTex, if we can. I started off that last little bit going a little easier, and Volel got a pretty good lead on me heading back to the trail. I got rolling and pulled away from Amy once we hit Veterans Drive and continued to push all the way home. There was considerable traffic on the trail this morning, with a large number of people strolling along, 3 or 4 wide on the trail. Frustrating, but I tried not to let that bother me more than usual. I caught Volel midway through the next mile, and went on by him after a spirited chase to catch him. Pushing all the way to the Zero marker, I crossed in a pretty fast time.

I hadn't intended to run this hard today, but it turned out to be 9.8 miles at an average 8:37 pace, probably a "PR" for this training course. My last miles were 8:30, 7:59, and 8:04, which was pretty good running. Amy and Volel finished pretty closely behind me, so we all did well today. If you add in the water stop time, our average pace dropped to 8:58/mile, but that's still quick for us, especially if my marathon race goal pace is 9:00/mile. :)

I knocked out 5x100m striders on the grass, and then we gathered for the extended stretch-a-thon at RunTex. There were tons of people there this morning, but it was still lots of fun to coach everyone through the various stretches.

I hung out afterwards for a bit and chatted with Alex and Volel, admiring Volel's cool iPod setup in his car, where the iPod (the big 60 Gb version) lives in his trunk, taking the place of the CD changer that used to be there. That's a cool idea!

Sunday is a probable full day off, but I may cross train and mow the yard instead. :)