and a sigh of relief.

As i stated in my earlier post - i was really nervous about my 13 miles at pmp plus 15 seconds. I tried to keep my overreacting in check and just go out there and run. I mapped out 6.5 miles on the towpath since I can't totally rely on ghetto garmin these days. To be honest i wasn't really sure what an 8:35 pace should feel like. I knew it should be harder than my comfortable 9:10 default pace - so I figured well if i push it a little - that should be about right. Well I started running - legs were still heavy from my track workout on tuesday but otherwise i felt pretty good. Mile 1 7:40 -- hmmm ok - guess I'm pushing it too fast - so slow down. Well it seemed that when i slowed down my garmin said i was doing a 9:50 pace - and as much as i know that my garmin isn't accurate it still scared me. Now i knew from what i had mapped out that the redlock trail head was 2.6 miles - so if i was going to be at an 8:30 pace I should hit it at 22:19 - I hit it at 20:19 - or something like that. Clearly i needed to slow it way down. Well I started thinking - i wonder if i can hold 8 minute miles through the first half and then do the second half at 8:30's -- if i can do that then I should be in really good shape for my 10k. So I ran on to boston store - mile 4.5 - stopped to refill my water - was still at an overall pace of under 8 minutes. so i only had to go two more miles out - from what i had mapped out online i had a pretty good idea of where the 6.5 mile mark was - just in case i couldn't trust the garmin. Garmin crapped out right around 6.1 miles - and then popped back online around 6.5 - right where 6.5 should have been. My 6.2 time was about 49 something - and my 6.5 was 51:47 - so I'm thinking a 6.2 time of 46:27 - is totally doable - especially if i'm not running 7 more miles afterwards!!
So I had a gu - and made my way back. Refilled at boston store again (mile 8.5) - still under 8 minute pace - I could feel myself slowing down a bit - my legs were still heavy - but through mile 11 i was still just under an overall pace of 8 minute miles. Well ghetto garmin decided to stop at mile 11.09 for quite some time - so I kind of lost track of my pace a bit. Just tried to keep it pretty even. Ghetto garmin had me running a total of 13.22 - in 1:45:05 - (we'll call it 13) for an overall pace of 8:05.
So yes I pushed too hard - i'm tired today - and legs are a little heavy - but really that was a really encouraging run - I needed to know that i could do that - and that I still had some left in me. I can run a half maraton at an 8:05 pace and still keep going. Good to know ... maybe this boston thing can happen....
thanks for listening to my over analysis of a 13 mile run...