I'm counting it. My goal before the end of this month was to run 8 miles at an average pace of 8:15. I thought there was no way I was going to make it and had decided to put it off a month and try to get that pace in August. Today was unexpected and I'm counting it. My last run was on Friday and then I spent the weekend in Wyoming. I was up late on Sunday so I skipped Monday's run as well. So this morning I figured I was rested and I'd check to see where I was. It didn't take me long to get warmed up so my first two miles were faster than usual. I kept a good pace on mile 3 then started to push it on mile 4. Amazingly I was on pace to get that 8:15. I was now running in the high 7s and I got the average pace down to 8:17. I had this one in the bag; until the gnats. For a solid mile there was a dense swarm of gnats. They weren't there on the way down so they must have just woken up. The were getting in my eyes and I was choking on them. At one point I had to stop because I was choking so bad. Well, there went my time. I lost motivation. By this time my average was down to 8:21 with just 1 1/2 miles to go. I picked myself up and started to run again. The swarm ended and I decided I might as well pick it up and see where I could finish. Mile 7 was 8:24 with the stop and I got discouraged again. I started out mile 8 slow and thought, "This is stupid. I'm going to kick it up again." I pushed for the last half mile or so and ended up with an average pace of 8:18. D@#^ gnats. | 