Boston -118 -- Tue. Dec. 22

Cold and windy, and me still feeling sneezy coldy, but by about 10 a.m. I felt up to an outing -- main problem was pain in shoulder from torn muscle? that got suddenly worse yesterday and kept waking me up in the night. Took ibuprofen and F rubbed in some linament, and I headed off for an eight. Wore shorts, but three layers on top and hat and gloves. Wasn't too bad, as the sun was warm and the wind not as cold as Sunday. Down GeoHannum and on to Boardman, stopping to stretch at about 2 miles (asked by concerned driver if I'm okay--must look feak and weeble?), then all the way to 202 and left up to Eskett, then down and round to Rural, picking up pace just a little at about 4.5 mile mark. At GeoHannum go left to Stebbins, then turn round and head homewards, deviating for more mileage by taking Jackson up to the rail trail, stopping clock at 8 miles, thus:

Time: 58:03
Distance: 8.03 miles
Pace: 7:14s

Comment: after that took rail trail along back to GeoHannum and back home directly, getting a gentle mile top-up, or more accurately: 1.13 @ 8:15s. Goal was tempo: two of the later miles of the main run were sub-7, and one other was 7:00; quite satisfying, as the pace felt mainly easy. I was gentle with this one as I didn't want to be sleepy in the p.m., but for tempo I think I need to redefine to sub-6:45 now...