Long run Saturday

Hey everyone. It is Saturday evening and I am sitting here still catching up on Boston Legal. I went to Susan's for dinner tonight. She made Lasagna and it was yummy. The girls had had a full day, Susan has had a busy week. She took care of a friend's daughter for a few nights and the poor girl had gotten sick while Susan had her so Susan didn't get much sleep for a couple of nights. Then I kept her out late last night at my office party and then she decided to get up and run the village to village 5 mile run this morning. Needless to say, Susan was pretty wasted. We all wanted to stay and watch TV after dinner but recognizing all the sleepy girls, I took off and came home, encouraging them to hit the hay early. I am going to follow my own advice and hit the hay in a few minutes myself.

I am tired from my run today. A very good run. I have bumped my long run up to 12 miles. I know that it really isn't that long but it is longer than I've run in weeks. I waited until after lunch, giving me time to work in the yard and allowing it to warm up to the high 40s/low 50s.

I decided to enter the 21st century and bought a cheap MP3 player. Normally I don't like listening to the radio while I am running. However, these neat little gagdets can store digial music and I can put any song on it in any order . . . . hmmmmm. Maybe it is worth a try. I put the soundtrack Last of the Mohicans on it. Sounds great and I love that album. However, I spent more time trying to keep those little ear thingies in my ears. For those of you who run with MP3 players please let me know how you do it or what type of earphones you use. I bought some new ones tonight that hook over the ear . . . hopefully they'll work better.

Back to the run. I started off with a first lap slightly over 9 minute pace. Nice and comfy! The second lap was a little faster. The third lap was speeding up a little more. Suddenly Patrick (Fast Patrick) showed up. He said he was wanting to get 30 or 40 minutes in and wanted to run with me. I told him I was doing a long run and going slow. As usual, he said no problem and proceeded to run with me. He ran with me for about 4 loops (approx 5 miles) and of course he was running faster and I was trying to slow down. He finished up and left me with 2 1/2 loops left to go. I managed through them and felt pretty good about it!

Here's my splits on a 1.2 mile loop . I am not listing all my mile averages. Just remember that 10:48 on the 1.2 mile loop is a 9 minute pace. I have 2 loops slightly lower than a 9 minute pace. I have 2 loops at essentially at a 9 minute pace with the remaining loops (6 loops) at under a 9 minute pace.

Lap 1 10:59
Lap 2 10:38
Lap 3 10:45
Lap 4 10:48
Lap 5 10:34
Lap 6 10:22
Lap 7 10:23
Lap 8 10:29
Lap 9 10:40
Lap 10 10:55

1 hour 46 minutes and change for a 10:40 / loop average. My per mile average is 8:53.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the run. Now I am tired and going to bed!