I had no problem adding a minute over yesterday’s pace to each mile of today’s run. Murry put together a scenic 6-mile route through Sierra Madre and brought enough maps of it that all different paces made it through without a single wrong turn. Eric offered an alternative left-turn-only route to the NASCAR fans in the group, and only one of them went astray.
My target was 8:22 per mile, which should have brought me back to Kersting Court in 50:12. One part of the trip threw a wrench into the timing for me and everone else, however: in the middle of the fifth mile, there is a long climb up Michillinda Avenue. Nearly all of us anticipated the drop-off in pace that Michillinda would force upon us, so we sped up in the mile before the climb. But none of us fell significantly off of our “Marathon +45” targets on that rise, so we all completed the six miles below our hoped-for times. My finish: 49:46 (8:18 per mile).
Next up: Rest! (Sunday is an “Off” day.) Back to the track for 400m repeats (ten of them) on Monday.