I hadn't done my long run the previous morning because I had woke up sick. Sarah (neighbor) said she would run this morning with me, and our goal was to do 10. I walked out my front door and Sarah told me her back was hurting with the "I don't know how many I can do."
Luckily, I employed some hefty distraction by having us run 2 miles down the road to the highway and across and then through a huge near shopping center (The Village at Allen) and a new hike & bike path we discovered they had built there that took you by two manmade ponds. We wound around so that we stopped at the pavilion in the shopping center at 3.7 miles to take a pause and have our Gu and refill water bottles at the water fountain that had really cold water!
Then we headed across Stacy Road to the brand-new Village at Fairview where they had just opened the JcPenney and Macy's. Another huge development, it was a nice chance to see it upclose without risking an accident craning your neck in a car while driving by. We found a new neighborhood of townhomes behind the shopping center and ran through there, finding another pond.
Headed back to the pavilion for bathroom break, Gu refueling, and water bottle refill again and were at 7 miles here. We had two encounters with "creepy folk": no one around at 8 am in this shopping center and a guy arriving in the construction area yelled at us, I think offering us a ride, and started walking towards us. Great way to make you pick up your pace at mile 7 as we sped away in the other direction. The other guy was at a street intersection - middle-aged guy alone in his SUV with his window rolled down, and he stared, smiling, as we crossed the street - creepy!
After Sarah's sore back started loosening up at the start of the run, she thought she might make it most of the way, maybe 9. Sarah had done a great job hanging in there with her sore lower back and around mile 8.25, declared she could make it to mile 9 and then walk the last mile. I pulled us off course to another neighborhood because otherwise we would reach home at 9 and I wasn't sure I could take the mental anguish to wave bye-bye to my house to walk one more mile with her. The neighborhood deviation ended up being a pretty good addition, and we ended up at 10.35 miles in the end!
Splits - these splits include a few jaunts through grass, a couple stops at intersections, etc:
Mile 1: 11:46
Mile 2: 12:27
Mile 3: 12:14
Mile 4: 12:46
Mile 5: 12:34
Mile 6: 12:57
Mile 7: 13:03
Mile 8: 11:50
Mile 9: 12:47
Subtotal: 1:52:24 - 12:29 pace
Mile 10: 18:26
Last 0.3: 18:52 min/mi pace
Total: 2:17:24 - 13:17 pace
Great job Libby. Smart move to add distance BEFORE you had your house in sight! It really is difficult to pass by the house just to get that last little bit of distance into your run!!
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