Saturday, Sept. 8,. 2007

This was another beautiful morning for a run. The temperature was 60 and there was a slight breeze. Not a cloud in the sky. Not humid. When the sun came up, the temperature really didn't rise much.
We ran on the paved trail around Smithville Lake, an outstanding place for running, biking and walking. It's heavily wooded, and therefore shady. The lake is always in view. There were deer everywhere. The trail itself is well maintained and, while it's hilly, it's not so much so that it kills the run. If anything, the hills add to the run.
I had 15 miles to go, and was supposed to average 9:35. Running with Mike, we started off slowly, running the first three miles in an average of over 10:30. Mike was having some kind of blood sugar problem for a while. After that passed, we had trouble keeping the pace down, and consistently ran between 9 and 9:15. We - at least I - wanted to run slower, but we both felt good and I truly felt I could maintain the pace for the long haul. My brain told me to be more conservative and save myself for the final 3 or 4 miles, but everything else felt so good it seemed impossible to back off.
We didn't make the turn until the 9-mile mark, mostly because I wanted to walk a good distance after the run. Helps keep everything from tightening up.
Once we made the turn it was obvious we weren't going to even try to hit the 9:35 goal. The splits kept inching down until we were both in a dead sprint for the final mile. I did my 15th mile in 7:41.
A run like this makes you think maybe you are really getting into shape. But, this is not the time to get cocky. There are a lot of miles to go before marathon day.