Minus One :( / Two Excellent Runs!

Today was gorgeous, beautiful, awesome, incredible, fantastic, sweet!  What a day for a run with friends.  T was back and I had a running partner.  She showed up with her son who was home for Easter so we had a repeat of a December run minus one!   One of the participants is in DC and was not here to enjoy this wonderful day!

We were going for an 11 mile run. T and son showed up with shorts (which T's son also wore in December -see above link) and  I sported long sleeves and capris. I am always sure I will be cold!  T and I often look like we are running in different climates.  Since T had been missing for the last two weekends we had lots of catching up to do!  We ran  a good pace but not too fast to chat!  Traffic was heavy for a Saturday morning in the country.  Everyone was probably going to the dump recycling center.  I was even able to run an errand on this run which I am rarely able to do. I left a check off for a friend, saving a separate trip in  a car. Yeah me!  I run to vote and that is about it for errands that make sense for me to do on a run.

Our paces (really my pace - they both can run much faster than I can)
10:17 overall
10:01
10:16
10:18
10:19
11:04
10:50
11:01
9:41
9:49
9:50
9:43
.1 at 11:45

Way to rock on the last 4 miles!  I was very pleased with this run/pace.  I felt great, pleasantly tired the rest of the day.  We played around with my new camera.  My other camera was slow slow slow and just not getting any action shots. This camera has the continuous shot feature which is fun to try.  The picture of the 3 of us was using the self timer which as you know I love to play with!




A lot of you commented on my goal post that I had met a  lot of my goals. Well yes but they are goals intended to be met several times in one year.  (race with family, place in top half of field, PR for calendar year in various lengths, place in age group etc.)  But many of you also suggested I do some new goals.  I have taken your advice to heart and I am going to add a 10 mile race as a goal.  I have never run one and am interested in doing one.  I keep reading about your 10 mile races with some jealousy and need to step up to the plate and run one. There is the Paul Mailman Montpelier 10 Miler in June so I should run it.  It is the same day? weekend? as a race I have done the last two years. I like the race because it is a very flat 10K (PR!) but it is poorly organized and that drives me nuts. So on to new races.  Hey that would meet another goal!

After I wrote the above I decided to start setting up my potential races table.  Yeah, I'm  a geek.  Come to find out all good races happen on the same day. There are 3 good choices on May 8. One of my favorite races last summer was the Shaker 7 in NH. It was a loop  around a lake and quite pretty.  It was a small but serious group of runners.  It was an automatic PR as I had never run 7 but this  year I was hoping to go back and beat last year's time. It is on the same day as the PMM 10 Miler.  Choices, choices!  What is a racer to do?

Today's run - Sunday - was incredible!  We were pleased with yesterday's run but today's was even better.  T's son came back for more so once again there were three.  We did our favorite 6 miles and I feel like the pace we ran was outstanding!  I am always happy with around 10 when I am not racing on a casual run.  Our overall pace was 9:35 with the mile splits being:
9:58
9:59
9:41
9:16
9:25
9:30

I was especially pleased with the last mile as I usually slow way down (see yesterday's last tenth above) and did NOT slow down today. We rocked it on top of our long run yesterday! What a great weekend of running!!!!!!

Happy after today's run!