Central Phoenix 8-miler

Bill is helping his stepdad get ready for the Disneyland Half Marathon in Anaheim on August 30, so Barry and I were on our own today. I was driving to San Diego for vacation at about 10AM , and Barry and Bill (and Jen) thought I was a little nuts for running and then getting in the car for a 7 hour drive. They're probably right...! Barry and I agreed to meet at 5AM again. We decided to do 8 miles today (both to give my legs a break because of the ride, and also so we could do the run at a faster clip). I left my house at 4:30 and stopped at the end of the Bridle Path to drop off some water. As I was passing the start of the Bridle Path, I saw Bill and his stepdad just setting out. "Oh," I thought, "maybe we can catch 'em." Since we weren't running as far this week, the pace Barry and I ran was a little faster than usual. We started off at a 8:40 - 9:00 pace, and kept that up for the first part of the run. As we turned onto the canal, I was feeling really good (but HOT!!) and was wishing we were doing 11 or 12 miles. A little way up the canal, I saw 2 figures ahead of us. "I wonder if that's Bill and his stepdad," I thought. I picked up the pace so we could find out. At one point, Barry and I were doing about a 7:50 pace-- on flat ground! As we got closer, I could tell that the guys ahead of us were, indeed, Bill and his stepdad. They were almost to 7th Street, which is where Barry and I would be turning around. The only way we could catch up to them would be to really turn it up a notch. So we did. I didn't catch a glimpse of our pace on the Garmin, but looking at the Garmin Training Center later, we hit about a 7:12 pace for a hundred yards or so. :) We did catch up with the guys at 7th Street and stopped and chatted with them for a minute or so before we began our run back. I'm a little amazed that Bill's stepdad is already up to 10 miles. I think he started running in February or March. I didn't do my first 10-mile run until I had been running for almost a year. And I did that run 0n a pleasant 50 degree morning, not a 92-degree sweatbox. He's also running that half after about 6-8 months of training. I had over a year under my belt before my first (and only-- so far) half. Way to go! We got to the water dropoff and re-filled our containers. For some reason my Garmin didn't automatically resume operation when we started back up again. Which is to say that the time and distance weren't incrementing, but the pace still showed a reading. I couldn't figure out why it felt like we were running at a really fast pace, and yet the Garmin was telling me we were going slower and slower. When it said we were doing an 11:45 pace, I thought, "I can WALK that fast!" I finally noticed what was going on and reset my Garmin. After that, it started counting time again. I can only imagine how fast we were going during that time. We finished the run in 1:12:00, which is an overall pace of 9:00 exactly. The first half of the run was at about a 9:10 pace, so we must've been cookin' the second half! After a quick dip in Vicki's pool, I went home to get ready for the drive to San Diego. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 0 ft Location: Phoenix, AZ Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 08/02/08 Up/Downhill: [+0/-0] Time: 06:12 AM Difficulty: 0 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 5.59 miles Time: 0:51:05 Speed: 6.6 mph Pace: 9' 08 /mi Calories: 948 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 16 +0' 08 6.5 -0.1 -- ft 2 9' 01 -0' 07 6.7 +0.1 -- ft 3 9' 01 -0' 07 6.7 +0.1 -- ft 4 9' 26 +0' 18 6.3 -0.2 -- ft 5 11' 17 +2' 09 5.3 -1.3 -- ft 6 ** ** ** ** ** ft 7 ** ** ** ** ** ft 8 9' 50 +0' 42 6.1 -0.5 -- ft end 8' 40 -0' 28 6.9 +0.4 -- ft Versus average of 9' 08 min/mile ** Insufficient data to calculate this split

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