I am better for God's divine intervention

Thursday, 10/4--Met up with the crew at the country club. We did the 7.9M course in reverse. Tempo would begin a couple of miles in. There were about 20 of us, and  about 7 of us (John Callaghan, Kevin, John Manion, Ed, Joe, Rachel, and me) broke off pretty immediately.  I guess we were planning to run the 4-mile tempo (in the middle of the 7.9M run). The pace was solid from the beginning.  Coming off North Hills the pace quickened as expected. We were at 13:30 into the run. Rachel, Joe and I hung with the guys for the first half-mile. And then it happened: they gapped us, hitting the mile at about 6:10 to our 6:20.  They increased the pace in their second mile, running, as I later learned, 5:56.  Rachel, Joe and I  dropped the pace, running the second mile to 6:08.  John, Kevin, Manion, Ed were 22-23 seconds ahead of us.  I was working hard and doing okay, trying to push the pace in fact.  My legs were starting to feel it.  I heard Rachel and Joe say that they had only planned to "tempo" for 3 miles.  I wanted all four.  God must've heard me because lo and behold, Ed suddenly dropped back from the lead group and joined me for the rest of the third mile.  Mile 3 was run in 6:10.  When Rachel and Joe stopped, along with Ed, who needed to head to his car near the Boro Y, I was left alone but only for a second!  Out of nowhere emerged John Callaghan, who, like Ed, joined me, asking whether I was going to finish the tempo.  I told him yes, even though I was beginning to struggle.  By the time, I turned the corner to head towards West Chester U, I was sooo tired.  As we passed the night I fell back for a moment,telling John to go ahead. He looked at his watch and said "we had 400 meters" to go. With those words, I began to compose myself.  John then said 200 to go, ad I was good.  We finished in 38:15.  Kevin K and John Manion finished not that far ahead of us, perhaps in 37:45 or so.  So, that means my 4-mile tempo was from 13:30-38:15, or 24:45, which is about 6:11 pace. Moving at 8:00 pace, we then jogged the last portion of the course--about 2M--to the country club. We finished up after 56:30.  I am better for pushing myself and mainly for God's divine intervention.  He's the reason.

On 8/15, We were about 13:55 into the run when we began tempo.  The 4-mile tempo went from13:55-40:15--or 26:20, which is about 6:35 pace. We then jogged the last portion of the course.
Wed, 10/3--Running a bit late, I made my way to the Y at 6AM for a running/lifting workout, alternating between the two using both the 16-lap-to-the-mile track and treadmill.  Similar to last week, I believe, I decided not to do full miles.  Instead, I did 12 laps (.75M) on the track (3 times) and .75 (2 times) on the treadmill.  The times ranged between 5:03 (first) and 4:50 (fifth).  4.25M