Pineland Plans

Seems my plans for running at Pineland do not go as planned.  Jamie had put out the word he was running long at Pineland and wouldn't mind some company.  Stephen was going to take some of his early miles.  Mindy and I wanted to grab some of his later ones when he wasn't as fresh.  He planned on 9 min miles.  I figured I could handle those for at least 6 miles and then I'd let Mindy go on with him if I needed to drop the pace.  Both Mindy and I were thinking 12 for mileage.

Well, unplanned shit in Jamie's life made him miss out on running with Stephen all together, not getting there till 8 am.  Mindy and I still wanted later miles so didn't join him till 9.  By the time we got to the parking lot, Jamie was already looking very soggy - high humidity.

We started on the Campus side for the eight mile loop and then figured to get 4 out of the Oak Hill side.  The first two miles were the only ones we held the 9 min pace; they are pretty much down hill.  Our run didn't get really ugly till mile six, when almost all hills became cause for walking.  I struggled with a stitch from somewhere near 5 miles in.  It became full blown before we called it quits after the first loop.

I have to quote Jamie's and Mindy's accounts from their posts, respectively:  "On a selfish note, thankfully Val and Mindy weren't really feeling it either", "We ended up all agreeing that we felt like crap and in a selfish way, I was glad that at least I wasn't holding up Val and Jamie"  Guess what?  I selfishly loved reading those lines because I think I had some residual doubt, thought that they may have been acting like they were having a rough time so as not to make me feel bad.  Several times while battling my stitch, I encouraged them to drop me.

We said our goodbyes, dried off as well as we could (just to start sweating all over again), and, while Jamie left, Mindy and I headed to the Visitor's Center.  There were some cupcakes we'd been eying for quite a while now.  Figures, they were slightly disappointing - just not quite as good as they looked.

For all the negatives, it was still good to be out there with Jamie and Mindy.  Their picture is supposed to follow, but blogger doesn't seem to be letting me : (