Today's another Saturday and the weather is OK (a little chilly, but not too bad). I got to the Panera parking lot about 6:20am, a few minutes later than I wanted to, so I set up to do about 3 miles before the group was to arrive. Knowing Bill was out there, and thinking he'd finish down Newman, I ran up Emmertsen to Spring first. Right at the corner of Spring and Newman I actually met up with Bill and a new runner, John, with perfect timing. Finished about 3.1 getting back to the parking lot. That was a really hard 3.1 for some reason and my legs are really wobbly. I really thought about just calling that a day.

But as the group started to arrive, I thought I'd set out to do at least a few more. We were running Panera 2 and I set off with Ken and Ben. Told them I would be running as fast as normal as I was stuggling a bit. Ran about 2 or a little more with them, then had to slow up a bit. Got to the back of the trail loop and thought about cutting over on the shortcut, but then thought I should just do the long route and I could just slow down a bit. Then as I continued over the next mile or so, I was getting passed by nearly everyone, but I just kept running.

As I got back to the driveway by Chipotle, I was just passing 8 miles. I was feeling OK, so I thought I'd try to push for a bit more. Some of the girls were just ahead of me and went north on that little road and over towards Emmertsen again. I remember from the first part of my run that from my car to the stop sign behind the grocery story at Emmertsen, it was a 1/2 mile. Therefore I pushed myself to run to that stop sign and back--ending the morning with 9.1 miles--my longest run yet!

Did that 9.1 in 1:22:44, which is a 9:05/mile average pace. The first 3.1 (by myself mostly) was 9:09 average pace, the second 3.1 (some with Ken) was at 8:43 average pace, then the last 2.9 was at 9:23 average pace. Definitely was slower at the end, but not too bad overall.