Luke - 10.9

10.9mi, 80:32 (7:23)
Plan was warmup, 5mi at 6:30 pace, and cooldown.  Got a couple fairly fast chicks that wanted to join me, one planning on doing 7 miles and one planning on doing 3-4.  Also a couple guys that were doing a different workout warmed up with us, so I had a nice group for that.  We did the actual pace stuff on Rexius, which is the softest bark in town.  First mile we did 6:49 and were still talking a bit, then I picked it up to the proper pace, which was a bit of work for all of us.  The first 1.25mi was slightly uphill with a slight headwind which certainly made it tougher.  One of the ladies dropped back soon after I picked it up; she was breathing a bit heavy on the warmup so I was wondering how much she'd be able to do. A few of the quarter-mile posts are missing so I didn't get a second mile split, but 2+3 was 12:51, so a bit quick but fine.  Fourth mile with a bit of headwind was 6:36, and somewhere in that the other chick dropped back a bit so I was on my own for the last mile.  It was pretty tough and I could definitely feel the little uphill (it was 3/4 uphill and then the last quarter downhill).  The marker for what would be my finish line was missing so I stopped at about where I thought it was supposed to be, for a 6:45.  The chick that had dropped off at ~4 miles took a little shortcut to rejoin me, but it ended up only being for the last ~200m of my workout.  I realized when she rejoined me that it was a lot easier to run with someone else there.  Anyway she kept going as I slowed down to a cooldown pace.  I had to stop by the park for a pitstop so I just took roads the rest of the way home.
The workout was a bit tougher than I'd hoped.  Some of it was the soft bark and the slight hills and the wind, but really I am just pretty aerobically weak right now.  I'm doing a workout like this (aerobic development) twice a week, so hopefully I get used to it as they get longer and/or faster, and I can get marathon strong.