Awesome.

In the great words of Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother), I am so awesome.

Or at least I had a really awesome run last night.

I did the Wednesday Nike run in Union Square again. Instead of the usual 4 miles, I decided to do the 6 mile route instead. This was pretty much the only workout I could squeeze in this week before flying to Chicago for the weekend so I wanted to make it a good one.

I decided to run with the 10:00 group again since they usually average a little faster than that and it would be good for me to push my pace a bit. As usual, my Garmin struggled with picking up a signal in that area so I couldn't track my pace until we got to the Embarcadero. So out of the six miles, I only have splits for 4.87 miles.

I don't know if our pace leader had a little too much Starbucks before the evening run or maybe she was just testing us, but here are the splits:

Mile 1 - 9:54
Mile 2 - 9:35
Mile 3 - 8:58 (!!!)
Mile 4 - 8:44 (!!!)
0.87 - 7:18 (8:24 pace!!!)

Total - 4.87 mi: 44:28 (9:08 pace)

This is not a malfunctioning Garmin. I know we were running sub-9:00 minute miles... trust me, I could feel it! I really had to focus on my breathing, my shoulders were starting to get a little sore, I felt a little winded, etc. I was both silently cursing my pace leader but also secretly loving her at the same time. The second half of the run was at better-than-5K pace for me!

I may regret this speedy run when I run the half marathon this weekend as my left knee felt a little "twingy" this morning. I think I can shake it off in time, though.

Last night's run was fun... since I did the six mile course, we had to run through Fisherman's Wharf which as you can imagine is tourist central. It was funny because there were so many people that took pictures of my pace group as we were running down the street. One person even took it from their car while driving by (it was a passenger, not the driver)!

On another note, thanks to everyone for their fun comments on my Disneyland Half race report. A few people mentioned that I looked so happy during the race... that is called selective picture posting! Yes, there were some smiling moments but to be honest, most of the time I look like this:



Or this:



Bleh.