Saturday's run was a little tough. I didn't do my weekly homework or have my running buddy or my brother there for support. I did however, finish the 8 mile run from Newport Dunes to Irvine. It was an out and back route. Between mile 3-4 seemed to be the longest mile. On our running route there are mile markers painted on the side of the road. Each mile marker I saw was a 3 or 3 1/2. I noticed by the second 1/2 mile we weren't turning around. I told myself to just keep running and that that we will be turning around soon. I never looked down after that. At our turn around I screamed "woohoo" and continued running. I am a little faster than my pace group, as I was passing some of my group members someone yelled "you should be in the faster group" (the faster group is about 9-11 min miler, my brother is in that group) I yelled back, "Eh". I like being in the top of the group instead of being in the bottom. I kept running and met up with other people. I found out they were part of the next group up (my brothers group) and stayed with them for a little bit, but I wanted to push myself so I sprinted past them and met up with a faster runner. Although he was a lot faster than I wanted to go, I ran with him for a good 5-10 minutes. He is in my group and I asked him why he wasn't' in the faster group. He response was, "they told me to take my time and just have fun with the run." Without trying he made it a few seconds before the cute off. I asked him what his trick was to make a faster time. "To take things slow in the beginning and then kick it up a notch in the second half." I think I might try that next time for our 9 miler. I finished my 8 miler in 1:30:15. My brother (sbobo) wasn't there since his wife just gave birth to a beautiful little girl. He now has 2 beautiful daughters. I do want to thank Mark for the phrase, "better, stronger, faster". I used it quite a bit when running by myself. It made the run not so painful. Have a great week and enjoy your runs, once they are over they are over.