SRRC long one -- Sun. August 31

Perfect early autumn day: hot sun, lovely tree shade, cool breeze occasionally, and dry. The three wakamon (Bill, Jay and Andy) were there at D&D at 10, as were Rob and Taylor. Kathy had run early but stopped by to say hello. Rob and Taylor did a cross country loop, and Bill ("Wheels") had a 16 miler planned in two loops. First was through BHS to road out to 21, up to Turkey Hill, over Summit across 202, Eskett to Boardman to Rural to GeoHannum and back to the development to Bill's place for water; second loop was basically an Enfield with a finish back at D&D.

Given how busy I was I figured I didn't want to get too tired, so said I'd do loop one and then head back. Pace was 7:40s, and I was feeling good, despite the run yesterday, so I said at about mile 6 I'd try for the whole thing, which would be a new distance PB for me (previous was 15.29 in late June). Felt okay to the stop point, where I finished my breakfast banana and ditched my shirt (sore nipple from wet run yesterday!). As we headed out again, Andy was not feeling so good, and he and Jay slowed; I figured they'd make up ground on the hills, so I was happy to drift ahead, but by the time we started up Allen it looked as though we were going to run 2 + 2. Bill was being fairly easy on the hills, and I was feeling okay, if a bit worried about the last pull up (and then Jabish even later). Chugged up at a good pace, and kept going quite briskly even as we headed along the flat; pulled a sub-7 going down Enfield, and then across 9 Bill mentioned he wanted to do a negative second split (or similar term, meaning second half of run faster than first). So he took off up Jabish and I followed at my pace, amazed that we were near 15 miles and I was feeling good. Across the top of town and pounded down 202 to Checkers, for the last loop round to the police station. Stopped the clock just after the distance, still a bit short of getting back to D&D:

Time: 2:02:44
Distance: 16.05 miles
Speed: 7.8 mph

Comment: Andy and Jay then appeared and we jogged the last lap around the state school with them. My time had been just 35 seconds over the even split, so pretty satisfying. Home for a cold bath and hoping for a good time at ChaD next Sat.