*Smile* This is officially my longest run in well over a year! Ed suggested trying out 8 miles today and, since I'm on break and have little else to fill my days with, I thought I'd give it a try. We headed up to the mountains above Saratoga, where Ed often runs. I debated about the merits of trying my longest run on trails. On the one hand, I knew I'd be doing more walking than if I did a flat run. On the other hand, hills are hard. After about 2 miles, we reached the road, and a trail that we've gone on together before. It was really nice to be on familiar footing at this point, and the next 2 miles felt mentally, if not physically easier. We ran back over our footsteps (visible since it was so muddy) until we just about reached the road again. This time, though, instead of crossing the road, we took a different trail that paralleled the road on the other side. It was a beautiful trail, with many more micro-climates than the other side, and even with the hills, we were happy to be trying out this trail. Ed hadn't been on it before either and was equally enjoying himself. We thought that this trail would be shorter, and require us to tack on a bit to the end, but it ended up actually going a bit over. The end of our run had us on the Skyline to the Sea trail (and the start of that PCTR race), and finally, we were back. I was certainly tired at the end of the run, but in a good way. It was great to be out on the trails with the man I love :)