Start Time: 7/12/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average Pace: 9:30min/mile
Total Miles For July: 31.5 miles

Well, after missing my planned runs on Wednesday and Thursday (just wasn’t feeling well, alas), Saturday morning I was back out there, and I’ll admit a little worried on if the nasal steroid was really going to help or not. Thankfully, it seemed to; my nose was definitely not as bad as the last few times and I had an easier time with my breathing. Still wasn’t at 100%, but it was a real improvement.

Laura’d had a couple of weeks off of so we decided to take it easy and stick together, letting Paul and Donna zoom off. Our first four miles were really consistent, right around a 9:30 pace. The fifth mile dropped a bit, and that was around the point that Laura decided she was going to just run 9 miles today. So, we stuck together until mile 7, at which point she turned around to run two miles back, and I kept going. It was also around there that we saw Paul coming back, which seemed a bit off (was he really 3 miles ahead of us?) and it turned out that he’d turned around too early on the second leg of the course. (Start at marker 5, run to marker 2.5, turn around and run to marker 8.5, then back to marker 5.) He went to get some water, and I kept heading on, picking up the pace a bit, although the mile after that was the return of the Hill of Doom, which meant slowing down a bit.

It was around there that Paul caught me, and we ran the rest back together, although after mile 10 I decided to slow down a bit, and offered to head back by myself but Paul said he was running out of fuel too.

Not a great run in terms of, “Wow, I was really flying” but it was good in that I did the whole thing with no issues. What a relief to be, perhaps, out of the woods.

(9:32, 9:29, 9:26, 9:34, 9:55, 9:49, 10:05, 9:08, 9:31, 8:45, 9:20, 9:24)