MDay-77 -- Sun. July 5

Schedule had been for the next long run, but can't risk it: changed schedule quite a bit, making this a recovery long run. Even so, didn't quite make it to the 10-12 miler distance. Several people away cos of the holiday, but four highschoolers there (John, Nick, Taylor & Savannah), plus Rob L. I'd had a late start (long phonecall home) so no time to run a warmup, but did the two part stretch routine while we chatted at DnD. Rob aiming for a shorter run, so we others all headed off on railtrail, down as far as the underpass, then right across road to Jabish canal; follow that still all together doing easy 8s; water still flowing over so we all get wet feet at that point, then at Bardwell decide to go straight back, maybe add distance at end. When we entered Spfld Taylor peeled off to head home (nearby) as the wet shoes had given her blisters; at that point I stretched out a bit, and John picked up, leaving Nick (cramp) and Savannah a little back. I proposed we go up into town instead of via the high school, and John agrees: when we get to the little uphill after the railway he feels it a bit, so trails as we head into town, but I slowed on common, then we headed down Jackson and Howard -- felt great, and opened stride on the downhill, kept it going on Howard, and then on 202, without sprinting, kept pouring it on a bit. John struggled but did close at the end.

Time: 1:11:14
Distance: 9.24 miles
Pace/Speed: 7:43s/7.78 mph

Comment: even the little uphill, and the faster longer strides at the end, were probably a bit much for the achilles tendon, but it felt so good to be running open! Ouf. We'll see tomorrow how it affected things. Last mile and a half were in the 6:50s and 5:50s respectively--we'd done 7.53 miles in one hour, but managed to up the average a lot with that fast finish. This counts as a tempo run, I think. Wore older trail shoes as they seem to work better with sore ankle...