a refreshing 13 miles

The days leading up to this weekend’s run were hot and humid. The forecast promised a cool-down, but also cloudy, rainy conditions. Friday night, it rained pretty hard and the forecast was still calling for rain in the morning. Not wanting to slog out 13 miles in the rain, I thought that I would have to bag Saturday’s long run and run it on Sunday. I woke up early and saw it a little cloudy, but no rain and it was a refreshing 65 degrees. I checked the forecast once more and the radar was clear, so it was a go. Brooke came by and picked me up. We had decided on a scenery change, so went to the Central Canal Towpath for our run. We got our first ten miles done on the nice crushed stone path and finished the last three on the Monon. We reward ourselves with our favorite Orange Blossom Iced Tea from The Monon Coffee Company…so refreshing after a long run. It turned out to be a near-perfect day, with blue sky, a few white clouds and still some humidity – but not like it had been. We took it easy, not too fast, but faster than our training schedule suggested (10:40 to 11:20 pace). Our overall time was 2:06 with an average pace of 9:41/mile -- more than a minute slower per mile than we ran the half marathon in May. I felt good, tired, but not exhausted. I later found out that I was also hungry -- ravenous actually. When I got home I consumed a small container of hummus and pita bread that I had bought at Sunflower Market before leaving Broadripple…it hit the spot. Here are mile splits: Towpath Mile 1: 9:54 Mile 2: 9:36 Mile 3: 9:22 Mile 4: 9:28 Mile 5: 9:37 Turnaround point Mile 6: 9:53 Mile 7: 9:45 Mile 8: 9:42 Mile 9: 9:30 Mile 10: 9:33 Monon Mile 11: 9:36 Mile 12: 9:39 Mile 13: 9:16