Running a race by yourself

Monday and Tuesday I ran easy with friends from work. KA ran 6 miles earlier in the week. He's only run a couple times outside in his life! He's done a lot of biking and eliptical workouts. We ran less than 10 minute miles for these miles. Great job KA. I also ran with B and R for 3 miles. This was an easy pace run but it was a beautiful day.

Today I did something I do a couple times a year. I ran the dam race course in Hinton as if it were a race. I had two buddies with me and we have run it several times over the last couple of months but we usually take our time. It was a perfect day to run, slightly warm but no sun (50F). Today I decided to leave them behind and go for it. I ran hard from the start. I did not warm up at all so it was a cold start muscle wise. This didn't help. We didn't have much time so I skipped any warm up. I ran the first mile in 7:14. I had to mentally fight to keep on pace and as always at about 2.5 miles I started to bog down some. I finished pretty strong though with a 22:43 which is my best time ever running this course when not in a race. Last year during the race, I ran it in 22:28. Of course it's a lot hotter in August.

I am still wishy washy about my next marathon (not a good thing to be). I think I am going to run the National Marathon on March 24th. I have to book everything in the next couple days if I'm going to. I plan to run 20 or more miles at once this weekend. I may try to do 2 10 mile runs in a day. I don't think the weather is going to cooperate very well this weekend either.