Waverly's 7.5-Mile Effort Last Sunday

After the Christopher's 5K Run, Waverly and I did our weekly long "slow jog or brisk walk" at the large, approximate 5-mile loop that is bounded by Sabine, Allen Parkway, Memorial Drive and Shepherd. (For me, I jogged the entire way after running the 5K giving me just over 10.5 for the day!)

The goal this week was for 7 miles, but I was trying to make sure that we had an hour and 45 minutes of continuous movement. After the 5K, I suggested that perhaps we do it in the evening; however, I came back and said that even though the sun seemed to be getting stronger that it probably would be better if we just knocked it out.

We started at Eleanor Tinsley Park alongside Allen Parkway, went towards the city to Sabine turned left and then went back on the trail towards Shepherd and Memorial Drive. (At the water fountain across from St. Thomas HS - and where PIM congregates during hill workouts, we saw Houston Strider Charles Rodriguez.)

Knowing what time we had made to that point, which was only about 38 minutes, I knew that I needed to stretch some to get the distance in. Therefore, we headed towards Memorial Park on the south side of Memorial Drive. We went all the way to one street beyond Westcott and then turned around.

We came back to the same water fountain, tanked up and then finished the loop down along Allen Parkway. I tried to encourage Waverly to slow jog as much as she could here and tried to relate to her that on "marathon day" that she'd be at mile 10-11 here and that she'd be feeling the same way she did then -- tired, but soooooo close to finishing.

Once we made it back to Eleanor Tinsley Park, we need some additional time so we walked all the way to the corner of Sabine and Memorial Drive and back -- adding about 15 minutes at the end. (We made it Eleanor Tinsley in 1:38:29.82 gross time.)

I "google mapped" it Sunday night using Geoff Guenther's tool on the HARRA web site and it turned out to be a whopping 7.534 miles - Waverly's distance PR!

The total time was 1:53:33.79, but we took six (6) stops totalling 4:41.46 for a net time of 1:48:52.33 -- a pace of 14:27/mile. (The gross time would have a pace of 15:04 / mile.)

So not to put a strain on her Mom (and because she fell at school in PE on Monday bruising her knees up pretty bad), they are going to do six (6) miles on Sunday and then we'll bounce back on the 13th of November and push towards 8 miles. I may try the alternating approach the rest of the way towards the "big day"!