Hordes of Deer Flies = A Bit of Speed

Sam never took a nap yesterday, so after I finally gave up and got her out of bed, we headed out to run a few errands, and then over to Highland Green Road, where we walked in on the powerline trails a very short ways to pick some blackberries and blueberries for snack. It was hot in the sun, but there was a nice breeze, and Sam had fun picking the berries and even more fun eating them :-) This morning she told Ryan, "The blueberries were not as sweet as the blackberries." I'll let you guess which color was staining her face last night! :-) Then, after Ryan came home, we headed out for dinner at Frontier (Sam's choice, but a delicious one for sure!). With all the activity from yesterday, she slept in until 7:00 am, this morning which was a nice change!

However, as a result, I didn't get out the door for my run quite as early as I had anticipated, and was really pushing it to get up to work on time (Since I have taken a few extra days off this month, I'm covering up at the gallery today.). I decided to just run the Highland Green 5-mile road loop, in an attempt to get the most miles into the alloted time. It felt warmer than I had anticipated, but perhaps it was just the humidity. Despite that, I felt pretty good out there, which was a welcome surprise. The pace picked up once I was off the powerlines and onto the pavement as it usually does, but picked up even further once I hit the dirt road along the back of the loop. The deer flies were pretty bad, and when the sun was at my back, I could see the restless group of the flies circling my head.  I subconsciously began running faster and faster in the hopes of outrunning them. Didn't quite work, but it did allow me to get in a bit of a progression run in those middle three miles! Ha. Maybe I should incorporate this route into my training a bit more often during the hot months of summer - with all the deer flies, it could be my speed work! :-)

Luckily the flies abated a bit once I got back to the paved road and there was a steady breeze to keep the nasty buggers at bay. I backed off on the pace in the final mile, but was still happy to see the splits when I got the Garmin plugged in (9:02; 8:22; 8:18, 8:10, 8:37).