Bottom of City Creek up the road, and then another 4.35-ish miles along the trail at the top before turning around and coming back down. Interestingly the trail at the top is officially only 2 miles or something like that, but it goes much much farther than that, just not particularly well maintained. Watch had me at 7:50 pace up the road, and then was screwy above that on the trail in sections with lots of turns and lots of branches overhead (everytime it started turning much, the pace would just dramatically, so it was measuring a little short). I turned around when it was at 9.8 and figured that I was at least 10 miles into the run, based on how much faster the pace was registering when the overhead was clear. In the last mile on the way out, I ran into a few patches of snow, which was kind of fun. I turned around and came back down to the road, seeing a massive moose on the trail in front of me half a mile before I hit the road (just a bit before Smuggler's Gap). Surprisingly, it was more scared of me than I was of it, so I didn't have an issues. Once I hit the road, I kept it easy for a tenth or two and then launched into tempo mode for 4 miles (14 on the watch, probably more like 14.5). Mile 15 was 5:15, mile 16 (downhill, but a couple nasty-ish rollers compared to the uphill) was 5:35 (yeah, probably backed off too much), mile 17 was 5:03 (nice gradual downhill), and mile 18 was 5:08 (2 significant uphills mixed in but pushed it quite hard). Hitting this 4 mile stretch in 21:02 (5:15 AP) was certainly encouraging and actually faster than I expected to be able to comfortably hit. Last 1.5 was a cooldown. Partway through mile 19, my watched screwed up and randomly added on two tenths, so that mile got screwed up (was running over 7:00 pace, and it jumped down so much that it logged me as 5:42 finishing the mile, ie .8). Watch finished at 19.8, which should've been 19.6 with the shortened upper city creek, which should've been probably 20-ish. Even if I was slightly short, and only hit 19.6 (I'm very sure this is wrong), I still hit 14 to 18 in 21:02 at what felt like half marathon effort and sustainable for 13 miles if fresh, which even with copius downhill, is extremely good for me right now. Overall, definitely an encouraging run.
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