Day 214

• 8.85 miles (6.85 hard, estimate 2 easy on return)
• 9:02/mile pace (during first 6.85, slower on second run)
• 0614
• Dreamy Draw Park to top of North Mountain via trail 100 -- aka LMI North Mountain Challenge
• Failure.   Not only did I fail to break 1 hour, looking back I am convinced that I also prevented my fellow suffering friend to do the same as he literally stopped and waited for me at one point so that we could try to make up time during the flatish section.  Pathetic on my part, seriously.  It could possibly be consolation that with a finishing time of 1:01:54 I shaved almost 3 minutes from my previous effort, but it isn't.   For whatever reason I just didn't have it in me to push any harder than I did, which is disappointing.   I don't know or even think that had I really pushed as hard as I could have I'd have shaved off 2 minutes, but it is still poor that I couldn't muster the stomach to try it.   What this means, of course, is that I have to try it again, but I'm not setting a date on "3rd time's a charm" until I've put myself through a lot more training.   For record keeping purposes, Craig's official time, and the NEW 2012 LMI North Mountain Challenge course RECORD, was 1:00:27.   (And I reiterate, he STOPPED for me...he is quite strong)
• The return was basically a shortcut through neighborhoods hooking back up with Trail 100 for the very end to get us back to our vehicles of choice.  For some reason, I think because I wanted to practice running downhills faster (something I've always been pretty skilled and fearless doing, but learned Sunday that it is possible to go MUCH faster downhill by seeing Craig go), I finished the last 3 or 4 tenths of a mile quickly...hopefully that will start me on some serious training for my next attempt!  (The return from bottom of North Mountain was 3.38 miles and took us 35 minutes, but I estimate that we only actually ran 2 miles since we had to pick our way through a mountainous section etc. -- probably a conservative estimate as perhaps we ran more than two, but whatever)
• A special thanks to Just Enough Craig for going through this with me again and providing significant inspiration...semi-related, I'm still shocked no one else showed up to join us, I thought for sure my millions of readers would've been interested....
• IronChad, I now look forward to running 10+7 with you and drinking lemonade while you're off biking between the 10 and 7.