47,520 feet

It was a cold and wet morning. The alarm went off at 6:30 (way to early!!) And it was a Saturday!!!!!!! Who freakin gets up at 6:30AM on a Saturday morning? After a check of the weather conditions (39 degrees and in between two lines of rain), it was a slow wander around the house to wake up and get ready for the big event of the day... less than 90 minutes later I was going to run a personal record distance of 9 miles.
After waking Sarah, a challenge in and of itself (Hi, Sweetie :) ), we both were up and in the car by 7:45 for the trip over to the Sterchi Hills Greenway for our group training session. As part of the Team in Training, we have these longer group runs every two weeks (today was 9, two weeks from now it will be 11 miles.) Having never been to the Sterchi Hills Greenway, I have to say it is a very nice course. Winding through a couple of nice neighborhoods with a few light hills, the course it located in North Knoxville.
At this point there was a few drops in the air and everyone attending was bundled up for the weather. One of the participants, Amanda, gave a "mission moment" to remind us why were there (besides to run a marathon), as her life had been touched by the loss of a friend due to Leukemia.

(Personal plug here... you too can donate to help the fight against all sort of blood cancers.)

Finally, we were given the directions for the run. Since we were located along the middle of the greenway, run to one end at a soccer field, loop the soccer field and return and run to the other end of the greenway and back - 4 miles all told. And we were off. This time, knowing the distance to cover, I had to make an effort to keep my pace down. I knew I wasn't going to conquer this at a 5K pace of 8:30 a mile. I caught up to one of my fellow team members who was running a 10 minute pace and stuck with her. Even though both of us were in our own separtate worlds (she had an Ipod on and, being my first time in the neighborhood, I was taking in the scenery), I think we both benefited from having some else to keep up with. Neither of us stopped at all, except when we passed the starting point to get some water.
Today was probably one of the best run I had because after 1 hour and 34 minutes, we had completed 9 miles (even having to throw in an extra loop around the soccer field to make it complete). Even with a steady rain for the last mile of running (of course, when you are away from the car, to only way back is to run in the rain). I think if I can back down a little on race day, and not get caught up in the desire to run those 8:30 miles, I'm looking forward to where I can go from here, and the half marathon in Knoxville and the 26.2 in Nashville. Today, I passed the 1/3 mark of my overall goal.