Stinky before I started...

Summer vacation for my kids has begun. This means time for training is at a premium. I got lucky over the weekend and had some back-up on Sunday afternoon. The plan was to get my 6-mile run in during daylight hours... woo hooooo! It was the first long run in this training cycle for my half-marathon in October.

But first we had to take care of some important biz...

I am not ready to divulge the specific nature of this biz, but I'll give a hint... my camera crew was around, costumes were involved and there's a contest to be entered with a closely-looming deadline ;-)

Once we wrapped up our shoot, it was time for me to hit the road. I threw on my nice purple short-sleeved shirt that is made of some sort of fancy wicking fabric... and was nearly overpowered by the smell. One would think that I had met up with the wrong end of that ginormous skunk I often see when running or riding at night. I wanted to get that thing off my body... but time was of the essence... no time to change! And since it was pushing up on bedtimes for the kids, my languid, long run ended up being a whole lot peppier than I had envisioned.

10K in 58:05, which translates to  9:22 overall pace.

My loops are most easily measured in mile-and-a-half increments... here are the splits:

1.5 miles   14:18                   9:33 pace

3.0 miles   28:23   (14:05)     9:23 pace

4.5 miles   42:13   (13:50)     9:13 pace

6.0 miles   56:10   (13:56)     9:17 pace

and then that last 0.2 in 1:55.     

It was an effort, to be sure. But it was "conversational pace"... even though I had no one to talk to, I know this because I was able to sing the songs as they played on my iPod :)

Want to venture a guess about that "important biz"?