This was my first morning running at Lake Tahoe. We were on the west
side of the lake just south of Tahoe City in an area aptly named
Pineland. We stayed in a very comfortable two story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath
cabin on Ward Creek with a balcony, large deck and hot tub surrounded
by giant pine trees. It was beautiful. The weather was nearly perfect every day (a ltitle hot one day), and never more perfect than in the mornings for my runs. On this first run I ran the 3/4 mile down to the bike path along the lake and headed north to downtown Tahoe City. I was only planning on 6 miles but it was so beautiful I wandered farther than planned and ended up with 8 miles. I stopped at the marina to ask about boat rentals (we went out on the lake for a fun couple of hours later in the day), stopped on a pier to look at the gorgeous lake, and wandered some dirt paths through a camping area. I ran at "tour" pace and averaged 8:59/mi for the run. I felt pretty good about that considering I was starting at 6500 ft instead of my normal 4800 ft. This run also had lots of rolling hills, with about 2000 ft of ascent and descent mixed in, a lot of it at the beginning and end. Our cabin was at about 6500 ft with the lake at about 6200 ft. I had to push hard the last 3/4 mile uphill to keep the average under 9:00/mi.
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