Oh yeah, oh yeah! Last Weekend Can Kiss My Butt!!!

  I am happy to say this morning's run made up for last Sunday's fail by 100 times. I didn't get to bed until after 11 PM and then Dorian woke up throughout the night with I guess bad dreams so I didn't get much sleep at all. When my alarm went off at 4:02 AM I felt like hammered crap, tired and just not wanting to get up so I laid on the couch for 45 minutes and then got up, got ready and was out the door by 5:30 AM.
  The sun was rising, but the fog covered a lot of it. The temperature was already around 65 degrees, humidity at 94%, and even though I knew in my gut I should have tried to leave before 5 AM, I was just too tired and I like to have my mp3 player for runs over 16 miles BUT I don't like having music during runs in the dark so...
  Things were going real good, between miles 3 and 4 I stopped to take a picture of the sun and the fog and a field.

 Phones just don't seem to take pictures as stunning as a DSLR camera, but it did well to capture what I was seeing. 

  Around mile 6 I saw cows, black angus beef I think. I spooked them as they were moving along the fence line before we parted ways. It is interesting to watch how cows run, they are an interesting animal.

  Around or just after mile 7 I had to stop, I must have hit a spot where the humidity just rose.... it took my breath away. After a few swigs of water and water with endurolyte fizz tabs, I was off and going (spooked some more cows, looked like yearlings). At this point the fog was gone and the sun was out, no clouds in sight but I still had lots of shade and was feeling good. Around mile 10 I consumed a Strawberry Kiwi Gu and some water, then continued on my mission. By mile 11 I had decided I was going to do 17 miles or try at least, the 16 route was going to give me lots of hills and with the sun out and shining, it was getting really warm and I was heating up myself so I chose the less hillier path that would also give me over 16 miles.

  The hardest parts were the last 3 miles, the sun was shining on me with no clouds, no wind and this last 3 were without shade and the last mile was me facing the sun.... I was stopping about every mile or .75 at a tiny piece of shade when I could. Mile 14 was my one and only pit stop (yay me!)

  At mile 16 I stopped and took a breath and some water, and thought to myself " I am only a mile from home and a long distance PR, awesome!". I stopped again at 16.6 at a nice shady spot just to soak it in, I was really hating that sun damn it.

   I ran 17 miles in 2:48:25 with an average pace of 9:54 min/mile pace, elevation gain of 453 feet and a loss of 441 feet. The run went really good, I went mainly by feel this time.

Laps/splits were:

Mile 1 - 11:03

Mile 2 - 10:39

Mile 3 - 10:20

Mile 4 - 10:17

Mile 5 - 10:08

Mile 6 - 10:01

Mile 7 - 9:49

Mile 8 - 9:56

Mile 9 - 9:45

Mile 10 - 10:04

Mile 11 - 9:54

Mile 12 - 9:31

Mile 13 - 9:38

Mile 14 - 9:30
Mile 15 - 9:41

Mile 16 - 9:17

Mile 17 - 8:51

   Overall it was a great run, and I am so happy for the long distance PR. I am sore, today and tomorrow is probably going to ache a lot, but I have a lot of cleaning to do. Yay me!