Pineland humbler

Planned to run 6 hours, at least 36 miles. This run was a great mental boost two years ago when my cousin Jeff and I ran it before our first 50 miler. This year was quite a bit different. We started off with a quick few miles and shortly met up with Emma, James, and Tim at the parking lot. The pace was casual with walks up half the hills and easy conversational pace. My legs still felt heavy and a bit achy from the previous weeks race, which was surprising. I definitely expected to run smooth and with little difficulties at well under 10 minute per mile pace. We ran the 25k loop without the fields and picked up the pace a bit through Oak Hill which felt good. I was even stupid enough to race James up a hill backward and then attempt another with feeble results. James had to leave, and was a bit sick as well as tapering for his 100 next weekend, so the rest of us hit the Campus loop. Tim took off after that and left the three of us to continue the 25k loop again. Jeff had taken a bit of a fall and was working through a leg seize through most of the last bunch of miles but still looking strong on the hills. I was definitely feeling slow and was not at all sad at the thought of ending before our goal. Emma seemed quite strong and even did more than she set out to do, even after hitting a 20 two days prior. After she left Jeff and I continued for another few but the were silly and slow and we were both relatively done at that point. Definitely not the long run we expected but at least a reminder that Pineland is a humbling experience.

distance: 23.45
duration: 4:00:00
pace: 10:15