This Year's Long Run/Walk Distance Record

I ran/walked on the Crabtree Creek and Shelley Lake trails in Raleigh this morning, and since last weekend's run was so hot and humid, I started at 5:45 AM instead of 6:30. Fortunately, the temperatures were a little cooler this morning, so the cooler temps combined with the earlier start made for a much for comfortable run this morning! I used the same system of trails that my local Galloway program ran on this morning, and it was fun seeing so many people I know out on the trails. The encouragement both ways was a lot of fun! Since I started early and kept going, I ran/walked most of my miles on my own, but rejoined my old pace group for a couple of miles toward the end, and did a 1:1 run/walk ratio. Nice change of pace there. I ended up with 9.61 miles in 3:00:01, a little longer than I was supposed to go (9 mile assignment for the day), but I felt good enough that I decided to go for three hours of forward motion on my feet. My average pace, while still slower than I want it to be, was 9 seconds faster this week than last week. That's heading in the right direction, thank goodness. *Breathing a sigh of relief!*

It felt good to run in new shoes, the Brooks Dyad 6 model, but my right toes are still hurting after about 3 miles. *sigh*

On the weight loss front, I'm down 4.4 pounds for month of July--yay!

Mile splits:
1)19:18
2)18:55
3)18:30
4)18:49
5)19:34
6)18:50
7)18:58
8)17:59
9)18:29
.61)10:37

[Picture of Shelley Lake by David Wehrs on Flickr.]