Boston -66 -- Sat. Feb. 13

Head out a bit later than planned, 11-ish, aiming for a 15+ miler on the Bondsville route: cold, but sunny and not too bad. Short entry to rail trail and then Howard and rail trail again, running alongside a freight train for a while. After a gentle first mile, then decide to aim for marathon pace, which feels fine at first--in fact have to slow down a bit occasionally. Out of rail trail almost exactly on pace, then down to MSears and on down to Bardwell, and on down to pass the old Grogge shoppe and into the other riverside trail: at the 8 mile mark, just 4 seconds over an hour, so pretty much on target. Decide to push a bit on the trail to make up those four (!) and find it a bit harder work than I expected. Maintain pace, and at the trail end keep pushing as I go up the Cold Spring road hill (get a 7:35 there). At the top, steady off and as I pass the orchards see I've slowed to 8:00, so bomb down Cordner and on to 181, knocking out a 6:40-something there. All road after that, and stay steady until the final hill up to top of town: slow to an 8:12, so mile 16 (down 202 on to 9) pick it up again with another 6:40 something, then run a bit more until I'm past the supermarket, ending thus:

Time: 2:01:30
Distance: 16.26 miles
Pace: 7:28s

Comment: this left me aching--it's been a high mileage week (a shade under 60), and I forgot my vit. I (!), but mainly it was the terrain: lots of trail and some solid hills. Pretty much all the uphill is in the second half too, so getting a slight negative split was hard work. I did *not* feel keen on doing another 10 miles, but, somehow I'll get better ready for that. Easier run tomorrow.