I ran 17 miles.

I woke up at 5:40am. After a couple of gulps of water and
one banana, I went out with a bottle half-full.

I was planning to run about 16 miles today. With no need to
hurry, I kept tinkering with my form. The fog was heavy in the
creek and at one point overflew to the other side of the
levee. The full and still-golden moon hang on the clear sky
between two lush hills with a lone runner gliding under it
toward the bay. It would be a nice picture.

I got off the paved trail and about half a mile later ran
into a group of happy folks, E, J, K, and M. I turned
around and ran with them. J would do 16 miles today and
let's see if I could tag along. M's going Boston a month
later and it was good to see her in great shape.

We bumped into four Chinese runners and one of them was
wearing a BURN shirt. We would cross paths again at the other
end of the hills 5 miles later. My countrymen/women looked
great. Even M heard of BURN and knew it was made up of
mostly Chinese runners.

E planned to run 8 miles today and left us in due time. M,
being the organizer, went to run with others. J, K and me
went on to the south end of the hills. On our way back and
near the "dreaded ramp/hill," I had already run 14.28 miles.

K was very competitive. I found if I wanted to run with him,
I just needed to stay ahead for a couple of miles and he would
come up ;-) It's a little annoying when I couldn't hear or
understand him well. His speech was very colloquial and not
as clear to me (as W's, e.g.). He sure pushed hard around my
16-mile mark and it helped a lot trying to keep up with him.

Overall I ran 17 miles at 8:50.

Actually, I ran a couple miles more after turning off the
Garmin as it was mighty boring walking those miles back
home. Oh, I smiled all the way ;-)