14 miles 10 steady

Last week i struggled to hold 6:45-7:05 pace for the 7 steady miles of our 11 mile workout. I could blame it on the 65 degree and highly humid day, but it was clearly more a case of not having run faster paces in a very long time.

Today, the weather was in the 30's, but even before looking at the temperature outside when i woke, I knew the work I put in last week was going to make a difference today.

Today, we did 2 mile warmup, 10 miles (instead of 7) then 2 cooldown.

Jim and i ran a steady 6:35ish pace all the way through, even pushing low 6's for miles 8 and 9.

Slowly but surely, the body remembers that there is faster turnover in there somewhere.

Side note: This route we run starts at 18th and run straight up all the way to 56th, then over a couple of block, then back down to 36th, then return back the way we came from 36th, to 56th, then 56th down to 18th. That's a heck of a lot of streets to run by, and it's pretty weird how the mind can play games with you. If you're suffering or not mentally "on your game" those streets go by slowly and painfully. However, if you're rocking it, you just count those streets off one by one and just use it as fuel to the fire. Pretty weird.