There's No Place Like Home

After traveling to two of the most beautiful places on planet Earth-- Moab, Utah and Paris, France-- I was actually looking forward to running on my home turf. There's just something about the familiar sights, sounds and smells of home that can't be beat. Barry sent me a teasing e-mail before I came back from Paris that said, "After running along the Seine and under the Eiffel Tower, are you ready to run along the canal and under the SR-51 freeway?" Absolutely! The original plan was to run with Barry at 5:30AM on Sunday. Unfortunately, I had to shuttle my in-laws to the airport at 7AM and that didn't work. So I decided to do 10 miles myself along the canal, starting at Granada Park. It took about 20 minutes for my Garmin to pick up a satellite after going from Arizona to Utah to France and back. Once it finally synchronized, I was on my way. I felt really good right off the bat. I hadn't been doing a ton of running in the past few weeks, so my legs felt good and fresh. I didn't have any time or pace goals in mind, but I found myself doing a sub-9:00 pace for the first half of the run. I felt pretty good, but it started to get up into the mid-70's around the 3 mile point, and I started to heat up. I didn't have a ton of water with me, so I decided to slow it down a bit on the way back to make sure I didn't overheat. At about the 6 1/2 mile point, I fell in behind a woman that was doing about the same pace as me. After a while, she let me pass her. Then she passed me. And then I passed her again. We exchanged like this several times until I passed her for the last time at about the 8 1/2 mile point. At that point, I passed her and identified someone about 1/8 mile ahead of me that I wanted to catch. I kicked it up a notch, passing her at about 9 1/2 miles. I finished strong, kicking a 7:15 pace over the last 1/4 mile. I did an overall 9:15 pace on the return trip, and I finished the run at 1:31. It's definitely good to be home, and I'm looking forward to the Mesa Turkey Trot 10K on Thanksgiving and the Fiesta Bowl Half Marathon on December 14. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 0 ft Location: Phoenix, AZ Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 11/16/08 Up/Downhill: [+0/-0] Time: 08:49 AM Difficulty: 0 / 5.0 Weather: Fair 73 F temp; 12% humidity 73 F heat index; winds NE 15 Performance Distance: 9.97 miles Time: 1:31:33 Speed: 6.5 mph Pace: 9' 11 /mi Calories: 1590 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 31 -0' 40 7.0 +0.5 -- ft 2 8' 50 -0' 21 6.8 +0.3 -- ft 3 9' 42 +0' 31 6.2 -0.4 -- ft 4 8' 57 -0' 14 6.7 +0.2 -- ft 5 8' 58 -0' 13 6.7 +0.1 -- ft 6 13' 38 +4' 27 4.4 -2.1 -- ft 7 9' 12 +0' 01 6.5 -0.0 -- ft 8 9' 12 +0' 01 6.5 -0.0 -- ft 9 9' 56 +0' 45 6.0 -0.5 -- ft 10 9' 48 +0' 37 6.1 -0.4 -- ft end 6' 40 -2' 31 9.0 +2.5 -- ft Versus average of 9' 11 min/mile

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