Ok, so it's March 1st. Several weeks ago I said that I'd start to increase my mileage on March 1st as it should be getting nicer by then. Well, this has been a rough winter and it's still not really warming up. At least is was a little warmer this week so the roads weren't bad, but it was still in the 20s this morning with a light westerly wind making it feel like the teens.

I wanted to do more, so I met the pre-group at Kristin's at 6:30am so I could get a little extra mileage. Ran to Panera at 7am, then Bill and I decided to do Panera 2 for a change. When we got to the trail, we realized it was all iced over. That's not going to work. We walked a bit and then ran north on Sunnyslope with a plan to just come back down Emmertsen. Bill slowed down alot as his sock had ripped and his heel was bothering him. As I approached Emmertsen, I was feeling good so I ran back to Bill to give him the clicker and tell him I was going to run farther. Decided to run back to Newman and down to Panera. As I got close to Panera, I realized I needed a bit more so I ran a couple of little diversions so that I would get at least 8 miles.

I ended up 8.06 miles, plus a bit more that I ran when I had the watch stopped. I had walked a few times with Bill (at the trail loop, and when I turned around to meet with him), so my time is a little off.......but I ended up doing the 8.06 in 1:16:22, which averaged a 9:28 pace. But when I look at my splits, my first 3.1 was in an average pace of 9:09, then my second 3.1 was much slower (had the two walks), then the last 1.86 was in a 9:12 pace. So I really probably did a 9:10-9:15 pace average which is pretty good. Also, this was a goo 1.5 miles longer than I've ever run before which is a big jump for me. I felt pretty good after this run so this is a good thing!