Despite the mist, a great long run

Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 14 miles at 8:45 pace.

Today's run was great. There were several reasons:

1. Cool temperature with only the lightest rain
2. Great route with a rewarding vista
3. Excellent company willing to keep it slow
4. Excellent result: the pace I was hoping to keep it to
5. Longest run ever!

Cool temperature with only the lightest rain
The rain held off, and for most of the run, there was at most a light mist in the air. This resulted in a nice, cool temperature, decent surfaces to run on, and, depsite being soaked at the end, not the sensation of bone-soaking I experienced twice earlier in the week. You know it has been really wet when you are optimistic after a run where it rained only a little.

Great route with a rewarding vista
The variation on last week's route was to run around the South end of the Zoo and to add a few turns here and there in the park. The reward: coming up the hill from Skyline to the Great Highway, at the crest, the Pacific completely opens up to you. With the marine layer overhead and the lack of glare, it was stunning. For much of the Great Highway, you can't see as much of the ocean as you might think, but from the South end of the Great Highway, you see the entire sweep of Ocean Beach, all the way up to the Cliff House.

Excellent company willing to keep it slow
Clearly, the best thing about the K-Stars is the people. What results from a Saturday morning group of runners of just the right size is that most people can find other people to share the distance and pace you want to go. I was sort of surprised that, in addition to Galen, with whom I had been discussing the 14 mile route during the week, both Mike and Danielle decided to join us as well. All three of them had participated in last weekend's insanity (Mike's team placed second overall and first in its division), so they were all willing to take it easy and go at a very managed pace, and it was great fun to chat about various topics (running and non-running related) while persisting across the distance.

Excellent result: the pace I was hoping to keep it to
One is supposed to run their long runs 90 to 120 seconds slower than their goal pace, and I have, until today, always felt like I was going with the group and finding a pace a bit faster than I "should" be running. This pace felt just right: easy enough through most of it, slightly pushing towards the last couple of miles.

Longest run ever!
About once a week until late May, I will be running my longest runs ever. Today exceeded last week by a mile in distance and 14 minutes in time (both factors being important steps). Remarkably, though my legs were clearly tired at the end, I was feeling euphoric at the post-run brunch.

Starts to sound completely insane when you say, yeah, I ran 14 miles today and I felt euphoric afterwards. Really.