5.82 Miles Easy - Merry Christmas!

Mile 1	7:17
Mile 2	6:09
Mile 3	6:47
Mile 4	7:15
Mile 5	7:16
Mile 6	7:11
Total Average Pace:	6:59

I woke up a little later today since it was Christmas. That being said I was still under a slight time crunch since we were going to have Christmas lunch at 1:30. I was a little discouraged to see that the temperature said 32 degrees. I dressed accordingly. When I arrived at the park it was bright and sunny. Yay! The sun was on my side. That would end up offsetting the cold temps. I wanted to do only 6 miles today since I was planning on doing 24 miles tomorrow. 

Since I started a little later than usual I got into a little groove pretty quickly. That being said a personal trainer looking type dude ran by me at the end of my first mile. He looked pretty fit, but he definitely didn't have the build of a runner. He was shorter but thicker than me. He was muscular but pretty proportional, not huge. I had a decision to make. Should I just let him go by and run my own pace? Or should I make things interesting, thereby making my run go by a lot faster? I decided to spice it up and run behind him. As soon as he sensed me behind him he visibly picked up the pace. Luckily today I was feeling good and didn't feel too challenged. About a half mile into the run I looked at my watch and noticed we were running 5:49 pace! Holy cow, trainer dude has some wheels! That being said, I was having too much fun to drop off now. Let's see where we go with this. I kept up with his pace and we finished mile 2 at 6:09 pace. Impressive. We started the 3rd mile and about a third of the way into it he slowed enough to where I took the lead. I could hear him breathing slightly as I passed him. But it was clear to me he was laboring a bit. I slowed it down gradually to around 6:40 pace and he made no attempts to pass me. As we came to complete the loop, I was totally impressed. He told me "Good Pace", and I gave him a high 5. After that I switched directions and finished up the run at a more conservative clip.

The one thing I have learned these days is that when the miles become boring and arduous, sometimes it helps to just spice it up a little. It's ok to do this as long as you don't take it to the extremes and wear yourself down. Running should be fun and not just a grind all the time.