12 miles at 7:35 pace.  

Set out thinking that I may decide to run either an 8:15 pace with a negative split or an 8:30 pace with pace descending by :10/mile ending with a 7:30. Hit the first mile in 7:10 quite by accident and re-evaluated my plan, cutting back to a 7:35 in mile 2 and then a couple 7:45s. Felt good and was busy thinking about a literacy and health study and some ideas for a Microsoft/Telligent talk. Let my body just go for the most part. At the turnaround decided to keep to the negative split plan and picked it up a bit. Not sure right now whether I did, but pushed it throughout, slowing only during the last mile due to stoplights and traffic on 53rd. Street running is a total pace-killer.

I am especially pleased with where my running has gone since the Chicago Marathon.  Had a fun and strong tempo run on Thursday and this 12-miler confirms that the Marathon left me in solid shape and that the swimming is really paying off.  Looking forward to the 15k next weekend, wondering what I can do.

Also really happy looking back over the past year.  Ran a 12-miler around Christmas last year and while I was not especially suffering, it was a major effort.  Also thinking that I ran that 8-miler run in early August at 7:30 pace and really had to work to hold it.  Today, I just ran it and let it go where it went---and it went fast.  Last year at this point I was getting back into shape and working up to an 8-miler in anticipation of the Turkey Trot. It seems like such a long time ago.

Reading Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running yesterday and today and I am blown away.  I have been so down on almost every novelist writing in the past 20-30 years that I had completely ignored Murakami.  No more, probably running out to get one of his novels as soon as I have consumed and annotated this one.  I will put up a post eventually with some of the best aphorisms.