change in plans

Saturday was going to be an easy 10 miler. Planned to meet the Rock at 7 am at Bragg. He and J. started at 5:30. I caught them after I'd started back out at 7 am after getting in a 2 mile warmup. Ran back with them about a half mile to return the book "Again to Carthage", to the Rock library. I'd had the book way to long and never could really get into it. Never made it past the first 20 pages or so.

Started back on my run as the Oakland HS kids were headed out. Let them go, but stopped to chat with "puppymeat", but he was into a tale about Mr. Badwater with J. and I went on. Instead of going nice and easy, I decided to reel in the HS kids. Cranked up the pace to about 6:30 to get the stranglers. Slowed to 7:20'ish to catch the main pack and picked it up to about 7:00 to lose them. Pretty dumb. I hadn't brought any water and it was plenty warm. Able to catch my breath as I waited for a train to go by before I made it to the battlefield. The kids never did catch me. By the time I made it to the ranger station, it was time to slow it down. SS and the local HS fast kid were headed back out. Holy crap, if they'd left at the same time as the other kids, they'd been crankin'. Got teased by about 20 drops of rain, just enough to show up on the pavement, but not enough to get wet. Cruised around the battlefield one time, picking it up climbing the rise to pass one runner and then again when SS and fast HS kid were headed my way. Slowed it down on the one mile back to Bragg. So instead of an easy 10 miles, I ended up with 9 miles of marathon pace average.