Notes
Headed over to the Marrington trails to do the full red loop for the first time. Sun was out for the first mile but after that it went away and it was probably only mid/low 80s for the rest of the run... really humid of course though. I've either been calling my paces too fast on the really hot days, or the cooler day let me really get cruising today, because I got to the ~8 mile landmark about 3.5 minutes faster than the other day and felt smooth as anything. Continued to feel good over the next ~20 min, then got absolutely DOWNPOURED on for the final ~2.5 mi. It was nice at first, cooled me down some definitely, but those trails get flooded FAST, so I was trudging through a mini river and slipping all over the place for the rest of the run. Tacked on a couple more min on the road to get to 100min.
So the loop is called "about 13 1/2 miles." I figure that's a little short of an estimate because that would make my other runs on the trails much slower than I thought, but maybe the heat really is all that bad. Yesterday lets me know that I haven't been slouching, but it's still hard to get a good handle on pace on the really hot days on this kind of terrain. I'll just call this 14.25 which should be conservative (calling 13.5 right)... it's all about effort anyway, right? Today breathing was way easier than the hot days last week but I was going much faster... just got to take it a day at a time.
Man this uncertainty makes me write a lot. Anyway, I call this a good week.