A Great, really Good Long Run on the Roads

   It rained all yesterday and the forecast kept threatening flooding which worried me as Chandler is a very low level town/city/area which meant many of the roads flood with raging river type flooding. Luckily that didn't happen, sadly I had to do my long run on the roads and without Rocky because I promised him I would never make him run longer than an hour.......... maybe an hour and 10 minutes on the road. Today I was determined to run 12 miles, the last long run I had was 3 weekends ago due to the stupid snow and ice and aggravations in my legs. I was going to go over 10 miles even if I had to walk some of it (thankfully that didn't happen).
   I got up at 5:30 this morning, it wasn't warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt but it was warm enough for capri's, my thermal long sleeve shirt and a t-shirt over that. I went ahead and wore my hat even though the forecast said 13 mph SW winds, 45 degrees with a feels like 38 degrees. At first I thought I made a mistake in not wearing my wind jacket but after the first mile or 2 and from then on it felt comfortable.
   Other than the first 4 miles which I have ran many times before, the rest was a new route until mile 9.5 as I got back onto a known road and then from then on. It felt really good, the run overall definitely made up for the really horrible 12 miler I ran 2 weeks before the Evansville Half Marathon last October. Other than some minor inflammation in my left toes/feet at many points of the run, I really enjoyed being out there and finally getting a real long run in.
    I ran 12.1 miles in 2:04:39 with an average pace of 10:18 min/mile pace, definitely enjoyed it as I didn't want to go too fast for a long run or too slow as I wanted it to be a challenge. Total elevation gain of 370 feet and a loss of 367 feet, so got some good hills during the run too.
Laps/splits were:
Mile 1 - 10:47
Mile 2 - 10:49
Mile 3 - 10:45
Mile 4 - 10:37
Mile 5 - 10:30
Mile 6 - 10:32
Mile 7 - 10:31
Mile 8 - 10:10
Mile 9 - 9:41
Mile 10 - 10:02
Mile 11 - 10:05
Mile 12 - 9:23
.1        - 7:45
    I was tempted to push past 12.1 to keep up that pace for the heck of it, but I know I shouldn't push it and avoid injury. I wore my hydration belt, one bottle (I think 8 oz each) had Grape Frost gatorade, and the other one had water in it. I had two packs of goo, one Chocolate Outrage (D-E-L-ICIOUS) and the other Cherry Lime which wasn't so good but not bad. Next weekend, hopefully Rocky and I will see 13 miles on the trails.