The weather: overcast and cool
The company: a group of like minded peers
The result: an enjoyable no pressure run
The total: 9.5 miles with a 1.5 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down, the longest I've run without walking in recent months.
Meeting someone new during a run enables you to learn about other people's lives away from running and explore new topics. In today's case, it was a lady whom I will call M. She is training for her first marathon and she wants to do it before she turns 40. M doesn't look anywhere close to 40 so I wondered aloud jokingly who her doctor was. A little botox here, a nip and tuck there could do wonders. No, I'm not saying M had those done. Some people are just blessed with good skin like M does, while the rest of us get wrinkled sooner because of the sun damage from all the running we do.
A couple of women we paced with last weekend started out a lot faster today and we weren't able to catch up with them. They must have felt really good because even if I was behind them, my pace was still faster than last week. No matter, I'm getting used to this holding back the pace technique. At least my ankles don't feel too battered afterwards. I'm still burning about the same number of calories regardless of how long it takes me to finish.
After the cool-down and after stretching, the cool air caught up with me and I started to feel chilly so I put a sweatshirt on and just skedaddled out of there and headed home. If this edge of summer chill keeps up, I may have to fire up the heater at home again.
Not much substance in this entry, just random thoughts about today's run.