Independence Day - 11 miles! (33 Total)

Distance: 11.0 miles
Time: 1:35:50
Pace: 8:42 min/mile
Overcast, mid-70s, humid


Got up not particularly early, walked the dog, biked down to Taney Field at Mark Ward Park at about 8:30. This is just over the South Street Bridge, and is the field where Doug's Taney League baseball team was based. I got used to using this as a starting point when Doug had practices here. It is about a half mile from the start of the Schuylkill River rec path. I did the "loop" - along the path and back across the Schuylkill at the Museum of Art and along West River Drive to the Falls Bridge, then across to the east side of the river along Kelly Drive. Back to the start of the rec path, then backtracked 2/10ths of a mile to make 11.

Legs were hurting, but felt more comfortable at about mile 4. Did the last 2 miles at an 8-minute pace. I think my pace and distance were actually a bit better than what was recorded, because my Nike+ graph shows a huge dropoff between mile 3 and 5 (down to an 11:51 pace!) when I felt that if anything I sped up a little at that point. I had estimated that this would be closer to 12 miles. Guess I can confirm that on future runs. Maybe there was some Nike+ malfunction. This is the longest run I've done since the PDR last September, and the longest ever by myself.

After the run, went home, picked up Doug and spent the rest of the day at the pool, swimming and eating hot dogs and hamburgers at the 4th of July celebration. Did a mile in the lap pool at about 5:00 and we came home about 7:30. Probably did 5-6 miles on the bike between the round trips to Taney and the pool. Think I will sleep well tonight!