Kenyan Way long run - 15.6 miles

I was running a little late like usual and pulled into the parking lot right about 6:00 and I'd never seen so many cars in the lot. I turned on my Garmin and tied my key onto my shoelaces and started jogging over to the base. Earlier this week I noticed this bruise on my upper left thigh that looked like it came from running into something, but I couldn't remember what I had run into. This parking lot is surrounded by these metal posts with a metal cable that runs between them to keep cars from driving into some grassy areas around the lot. I remembered last week running in the dark not seeing the cable and running into it so I was a little more careful because I didn't want to hit it again. I saw a driveway where it looked like the cables stopped so I cut through there and...bam...I run right into the cable and almost somersaulted over it. Now I have another bruise on my left thigh and a matching one on my right thigh. Hopefully the third time will be a charm.

When I got to the base, my group had already left so I set to chasing them down. I skipped the first water stop at 2 miles and saw the group a little after that. I eased up on the pace once I caught them and we continued running towards Rice. When we got to mile 4, the water stop wasn't set up there so I knew I definitely needed a water stop when we got to mile 6. We added an extra lap around Rice before heading back and we were down under 7:00 pace by this time. We got back to the base and I was at about 14.6 miles, but I wanted to do at least 15 so I ran an extra mile up Snover to Floyd back to Jackson Hill and back to the base for a total of 15.6 miles. My garmin showed me averaging 7:03 pace for the workout. I felt really good, especially the last several miles in stark contrast to last week. After the workout my groin was a little sore like I had tweaked it a little, but after some stretching at home it was feeling ok. I'll see how it feels on the Sunday run and if it is still sore I'll skip the hills and just do an easy run on Monday.

Mile 1 7:30

Mile 2 6:58

Mile 3 6:51

Mile 4 7:06

Mile 5 7:20

Mile 6 7:16

Mile 7 7:09

Mile 8 7:15

Mile 9 7:10

Mile 10 7:03

Mile 11 6:58

Mile 12 6:53

Mile 13 6:49

Mile 14 6:46

Mile 15 6:43

6:20 pace for last 0.6