Start time: 6/20/09, 7:00am
Location: SW Waterfront, Capitol Hill, National Mall
Distance: ~10 miles
Average pace: 9:59min/mile
Total Miles For June: 47 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 359 miles

This Saturday, I went running with a new group. As I’d mentioned last Saturday, we’d run into some of the folks we used to run with, and this week we sort of merged groups. I say sort of because Aaron and Dave are still building up their distance, so they went running with Ben for just 7 miles. Meanwhile, I headed out with Stephen, John, and two new guys I hadn’t met before, Jim and Michael. It was a nice group, they’re all chatty but in a good way. The one downside was that once again, after a few miles I started feeling sick to my stomach. *sigh* Maybe I’m not hydrating well enough? Or need to take something like pepto before a run?

I did finish out the full 10, though, although Stephen and I started lagging behind a bit the later the run went. The humidity certainly wasn’t helping matters, it was just dreadful out this morning. I certainly welcomed that the guys took a short walk break at each mile; with a day like today, I definitely needed it and then some. Disgusting out, pure and simple. As it was, literally seconds before Stephen and I finished running, a drop of rain hit me. About a minute after we were done, it had started to pour. So at least we dodged that bullet!

Start time: 1/24/09, 1:00pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average pace: 9:27min/mile
Total Miles For January: 35 miles

This run had all sorts of “finally” meanings.

Finally running again after a week’s break. That wasn’t intentional, although at least I walked my butt off on Sunday (5mi) and Tuesday (7.25mi). Unfortunately while I made it through spinning on Wednesday, then all the inauguration exertion caught up with me, big time. Oof. Oh well. I got a lot of sleep last night and everything seems to be back to normal.

Finally running outside. I mean, come on, this should be a given. It’s just been too darn cold, though. This run seems to have shown that treadmills are indeed (as I was hoping) the enemy. Bleah. No more treadmills for a while if I can help it! Sure was windy out, though. Brrrr.

Finally hitting double-digit mileage. The last time I did that was when I ran 13 miles of MCM with Sarah… at the end of October. Yikes! It felt nice to get the mileage moving up again.

The run itself wasn’t bad. It wasn’t one of those, “Wow, I did great,” but after last week’s major poop-out on an 8-miler, I’ll take it. Once again, I ran downhill for the first mile, then turned around and started my climb up through mile 6. Oh, did it feel nice to turn around at marker 7.5 and start heading back downhill after all of that! Slowly getting back there. It felt nice to make some real progress today.

(9:03, 9:20, 9:36, 10:09, 9:55, 9:48, 9:30, 9:15, 9:09, 8:42)

Start Time: 9/21/08, 8:15am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average Pace: 8:59min/mile (or 9:08min/mile)
Total Miles For September: 45 miles

I will be the first to admit that after Saturday’s bomb-out, I was not looking forward to Sunday’s run. My quads were a little sore, and I was feeling… less than encouraged about the run. But I headed out anyway (because I am a masochist, I guess) and ran on the W&OD Trail; starting at marker 3.5, down to the 2.5 marker, then up to 7.5 before heading back to start.

I don’t know why I am always surprised by the trail heading just slightly uphill as the marker numbers increase, but some days it gets me more than others. This was one of those days where that tiny tilt semed just horrible. About 4.5 miles in I actually turned off my watch, sat down, and ate my gel for 90 seconds before continuing on. That helped a little bit, but the biggest thing was about half a mile later running into Alma, whom I trained with back in 2005. She was on her bike getting ready for a triathlon next weekend, and she rode next to me for a few minutes before she zoomed off. And that was what really got me going again. My spirits were lifted, and I did just fine until (finishing off mile #6) I got to turn around and start heading slightly downhill for the remainder.

My finishing time was supposed to be between a 9:00 and 9:30min/mile average, so even with that 90 second break being fully added on, things were a-ok on that front. But I was still pretty beat after Saturday’s 15 mile disaster, so it was certainly tougher than it would have otherwise been!

(8:44, 8:47, 8:56, 9:32, 9:07 (or 10:37), 9:14, 9:06, 8:54, 8:40, 8:48)

Start Time: 8/9/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles & 2 miles
Average Pace: 7:59min/mile & 10:05min/mile
Total Miles For August: 26 miles

Eeeek. Saturday brought a group make-or-break run, where you run about a minute per mile faster in four 2-mile stretches, with a recovery between each one. I was a little worried only because I’d really cramped my legs up good earlier in the week (I don’t know what I was thinking, wearing my running shoes four days in a row), but things seemed to be juuust about back to normal.

So, we ran a warm-up mile, and then started heading down the W&OD Trail. The first set was waaaay too fast for me, which could have spelled real doom considering that not only were there three more sets to go, but sets 2 and 4 are uphill (while 1 and 3 are downhill). Happily, I did get to adjust a bit and on the whole it wasn’t too bad. Not quite where I wanted to be (set #3 was the best), but not bad. Especially for the overall average, which was perfect, really.

As an added bonus, though, it was “familiar faces on the trail” day; Deborah and Archie were both out running, and Ryan was walking a friend’s dogs. Yay for that!

warm-up: 10:17
splits: (7:26 & 7:38), (8:15 & 8:14), (7:49 & 7:58), (8:06 & 8:30)
cool-down: 9:54

Start Time: 3/6/08, 8:00am
Location: Court House, Clarendon, Ballston, W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average Pace: 9:33min/mile
Total Miles For March: 13 miles

Ok! Back on the wagon, Greg—both for running and for updating. (I just put a whole bunch of backdated entries from the past month and a half on here. Eek.) Anyway, I ran a 10 miler today; with the National Half Marathon for me on the 29th, it was rapidly approaching do-or-die time. So it was a slowish for me run, and I felt a little bit creaky, but so long as I can get running again all will be quite good. Right? Hopefully?

Hell of a lot of hills though. Especially once you get west of Ballston. Upppp and dowwwnnn and upppp and downnnnn… bleah!

(Supposedly it was a 9:33min/mile. But the GPS also said that my ninth mile was a 10:54, and to be honest I find this hard to believe. So on the bright side, a little faster. Not much, but a little.)

Start time: 9/9/07, 8:00am
Location: National Mall & Capital Crescent Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average pace: 8:47min/mile

Another 10-miler this morning, but one in which I learned something very important—I need someone in a race that I can pace off, get discouraged by, and ultimately beat. Because if I have all three things, I’m golden. Laura and I ended up losing Dave and Paul around mile 4.5 today; they were about 10 seconds ahead of us, hit a light that we missed, and were gone. But as Laura and I pushed on (and I was still feeling a little beat from this week’s exhaustion, although a lot of rest on Saturday helped a great deal), we were still doing good. I’d told Laura that if she wanted to talk off at any point she was free to do so, and around mile 8.5 she began to pull ahead. Then, as we got closer to the second turn-around (at mile 9), Dave came through—and then we saw Paul hit the turn-around, not that far ahead of us.

Really, all it ultimately took was for Laura to pass Paul for me to end up picking up the pace. I didn’t catch Laura by the finish (she was about 10 seconds of me) but that combination of having a target to focus on and also knowing the end was in sight? Perfect.

Fingers crossed that next Sunday’s long run goes well. After the last one’s disaster (courtesy stomach problems), I need a strong long run.

On a random note, my right foot is a little sore. Hmph.

Start time: 8/30/07, 6:45pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average pace: 8:56min/mile

The original plan was that I would split this run up like I did two weeks ago; 5 miles in the morning, then 5 more after work. Unfortunately, stomach problems kept me up until around 4am on Tuesday night, meaning I was so tired on Wednesday that I skipped my spinning class and went to bed early… and then couldn’t fall asleep for less problematic reasons, but still resulting in not much rest. I ended up scratching the morning portion of the run, and decided that I’d just do 5 or 6 after work and call it a day. Well… except… I figured, why not try and pick up the full 10 miles in the evening?

As it turned out, it worked pretty well. I decided to not make it a Tempo run, instead just shooting for a regular 9min/mile pace. Based on the splits, I’d say I had some really good consistency! (9:02, 8:53, 8:43, 9:02, 9:03, 8:55, 8:49, 9:01, 8:54, 9:00.) A nice evening to go running, and it was fun to make the turnaround marker 8.0 on the W&OD; I haven’t seen the stretch between 5.5 and 8.0 for a long time, and it was like being reunited with an old friend.

Start time: 4/28/07, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Run:Walk Ratio: 6:1 (& none)
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

On Saturday I went running with some of my old running buddies—Carla, Chanty, Craig, MJ, and Randy. It was all about running with them and enjoying the good company, so they picked the pace (and a run:walk ratio, which I haven’t done in quite a while!) and off we went. It was good to catch up with them, if a little slower than I was used to. Randy and Chanty needed to slow down on the way back from the inital 8 miles, so we said farewell to them around mile 6. MJ finished up at mile 8, and then Carla and Craig and I picked up an additional two. Carla wanted to try dropping the walks at that point so we did the last two miles that way. It was a nice way to wind down the non-marathon-season.