Friday, March 28, 2008 [10M]

Claremont. I was up around 7:30 AM so that I could join the team for their 8:30 practice at Claremont McKenna College. I started with everyone in the mid-distance/distance group, running around somewhat familiar areas since we came here for the spring trip 3 years ago. Everyone was doing a meet warm-up so I was with most of the group for the first 3 miles, continued with Jacokes to 5 and added another 5 by myself. I was feeling surprisingly good for a run this early in the morning, which I'll attribute to having someone to run with, even for part of the run. The pace wasn't very fast but decent while running with the guys, then I picked things up a bit the rest of the way. I was back at the track in 65 minutes and added a lap around the track to make rounding up to 10 more justifiable. I was running 6:00 pace for that lap and it wasn't much faster than what I had been running for most of the run so this was definitely a solid 10. I even ran some strides on the infield, which felt decently fast despite not having run any for almost 2 months. As much as I hate running in the mornings, I have to admit that getting the run out of the way early was very satisfying and allowed me to enjoy the rest of my vacation day. Rachel and I drove down to Coronado after practice and met Jake for a Mexican feast. We spent a few hours at the beach afterwards, dared to take a quick dip in the cold-whirlpool-like ocean and chilled in Coronado before going back to Jake's place for dinner with the rest of the team.