No, I wasn't kidding...

How bout a 9:41 pace on the 8 miler today? In Haley's words.."Bam! What?"

What an incredible run this AM. Set out for 8 south. My route south is 7, so knew I would be seeing some new path. Felt great and at museum campus, took the right fork to go around the Field Museum to Soldier Field. Was a hard choice as the sunrise was glorious and I knew the view from Adler was going to be sick, but I'm a funny guy and wasn't sure how I would manage the distance as I'm used to doing a straight out and back and if I did the Adler, I'd have to manufacture miles to make up for the blah blah blah... Anyway, I chose to stay on the path and head around the Field to the west. First steps brought me to a tough hill going up to the Field and then path didn't continue as expected. Doh! So I took a left in front of the Field and felt instantly like I was in a place I had run before. Was it the Human Race? No. Soldier Filed 10? No. Rock and Roll Half? No. I was racking my brain trying to remember as I turned south and ran past the concession stands and ATM. Re-connected with the Lake front path by Soldier Field when it hit me. Oh my, this is the Nike Ready to Run 20 miler path....THE race I'll be running on Sunday. Instantly, I felt like Lance. Why you say? Because I learned Tuesday (re-learned really) that Lance rides every mile of the Tour in the months leading up to the tour. No surprises. So, this was my "training" run on Sunday's course. Eventually, I passed the point at which I decided to "take a few extra steps" at the water station and ultimately killed my run last year. It felt great to bust through that memory and run on. Can't wait for Sunday!

I have to comment that south of the museum campus is absolutely gorgeous. Great parks, Burnham Harbor, etc. Just stunning. Coming back, I cut to the East and followed the path to the Shedd. Upper path runs along by the Oceanarium and offers perfect views of the lake and city.

As I approached the pier where the police boats park (where I generally take my last loop out before heading in to the serene riverside park nobody knows about..shhhhh) I hit the ipod to see what I have left. She announces that I have 0.65 miles left and my pace is 9:56. My goal for the run was to complete it in under 1 hour 30 mins @ an 11 minute mile. I heard this pace and got high school kid excited. My oh my, I have to finish under 10 min pace now! I kicked it into gear and for the second day in a row, set a personal best for the mile in my last mile of a run and finished with an average pace of 9:41....2 seconds faster than the 5 miler yesterday. Admittedly, I had great help during the last mile with 3 perfect pace songs. "We are beautiful! We are doomed!" by Los Campensinos, "Sly" by The Cat Empire and "Percussion Gun" by White Rabbit. All fast paced, high energy songs. Brilliant.

During today's run I definitely found my void. My void is when I am thinking of nothing but the music in my ear. Heard a lot of great lyrics today that have been drowned out by the conversation in my head up to now. Really refreshing and a perfect set-up for Sunday's run.

23 days to go. 23, the sum of my participant number. 23..the greatest of all time. Today...I loved my run. I know my next may not be so sweet, but for now, I'm a runner and I'm proud.