Friday

Today I went out for my weekly long run. My next event this fall is a trail 1/2 marathon on the 15th, so I wanted to do between 10 and 12 miles.
The morning was absolutely beautiful, clear blue skys, and cool temps. I took Henry (my training partner/Jack Russel Terrier) over to Lake Rebecca, so he could run with me. The mountain bike trail is a nice single track/grass trail that's about 3.5 miles over rolling terrain. I figured I could run that with some extra miles on the paved hike/bike trail. The first half of the run I did with Henry, just shy of 7 miles part of which was the whole mountain bike loop. I dropped Henry off at the car, and headed out for another 4+ miles. I picked up the last mile and 1/2 of the mountain bike trail, and then looped back to the car. The run was just shy of 12 miles total. I felt pretty good, although most my climbs were punctuated by boughts of nearly coughing up a lung, but I still felt remarkably good.
I wore my trail shoes, which I'm liking better with different socks, changing how I lace them, and heel lifts, that was until I took them off and found they'd given me blisters on the balls of my feet.. Ugh. I never get blisters.
Based on my GPS, I averaged a 9:40 pace, which I felt was good for a training run on trails. I'm not setting any time goals for the 1/2 marathon yet, we'll see how I feel as the day gets closer.