solo half

Sunday turned much colder, from the balmy 40s down to mid 20s. But no precipitation, and I had time to get out for a long slower run. So at around noon I headed along 9 to Allen, across to 202, up to Munsell and off the main road there to Knight's Pond, then back out across 202 down toward the reservoir, turning off short at the trail that comes out on Juckett Rd, then back along Allen to 202 and home (tantalisingly) with a cut through the DnDo carpark. I stopped the timer at 13.1 miles, a half marathon, but amazingly that was exactly at the bottom of Dana Hill. I'd gone off with minimal warmup, intending to take it slowly and see how it felt. It was cold all along, even with full gear (but a hat instead of a balaclava); I took water and mainly ran somewhere between comfortable and with pace. There were plenty of hills, including going up Juckett Hill, where I was down to less than 6mph -- tired at that point and chilling off. But in all, a good varied run:

Distance: 13.1 miles
Speed: 7.49 mph
Time: 1:44:51

Comment: the usual problems with clothing discomfort from running over an hour and a half. That's one advantage of racing--you wear less. Given the hills included on the run, I'm very happy with the almost 7.5 mph speed (that's an 8 min. mile). That also leaves me only 12 miles to reach 25 for the week, so today (Mon.) I'm happily taking a rest day (especially with the 6 inches of sticky snow that came down between 5 a.m. and midday!)