Start time: 08/27/06, 7:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:48min/mile

We started off the run today with a whopping five runners; myself, Stephanie, Emma, Chris S., and Rick. Or, as we joked at one point, “four staff members and a participant.” We lost Chris four mies in, but that was actually to be expected because he’d only planned on running eight miles. Up through this point we were all going pretty strong, despite it being a muggy, humid sort of morning once we’d left the waterfront area. We began to lose a bit of momentum after that, though. The weather was dragging us down, but it seemed like something more as well. Just one of those runs where partway through you realize that (unlike my 12-miler two weeks ago) you aren’t going to be able to just power through it like there’s no tomorrow.

About six and a half miles in (on the Capital Crescent Trail) Stephanie started to slow down a bit and offered to wait for the next group to come back. She’s coming off of a bad cold and all things considered was being a real trooper when she wasn’t really back up to her full capacity. Since Emma and I were going to mark the turn-around on the trail, we zipped up the last half mile, chalked all over the place, and let Rick and Stephanie catch us there. From there we headed back, but Stephanie soon decided (wisely) that she really just needed to drop back a bit. She and Rick decided to run together until a slower group caught us, so Emma and I continued onwards.

Except, of course, we were starting to fade as well. We pushed each other through as best we could, and I knew I was starting to warm up when I first welcomed a water volunteer pouring water on my head, and then ended up taking my shirt off for the last mile and a half. These are the End Times, people. Once we finished up, though, we got word that a runner needed locating on the Capital Crescent Trail, so after grabbing half a banana we threw Emma’s bike into my car and headed up to Thompson’s Boathouse so she could start biking in from there. Naturally, no sooner did we get there than the runner resurfaced… phew! That was a real relief.

So, a tough run for everyone involved. I don’t think anyone (except for maybe Rick, super-runner-extraordinaire) in our group had a “great” run by any stretch of the imagination. But we all finished, and we all made the right choices, and I’m quite pleased with that.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=364978

Start time: 07/09/05, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

Beauty. It was hard getting up for a 6am start time again, but that was the toughest thing for me about today. Mike was our new pace group leader, although I stuck by him up at the front to help set the pace since it’s a tricky thing to do for the first time with a large group. Boom, boom, boom: we knocked those miles out with little difficulty. Even better, now that we’re going out to the Vienna Community Center, the obligatory bathroom break wasn’t so killer since there are multiple bathrooms to use for everyone who needs them. (I must admit, I like going in just for the air-conditioning and the allure of paper towels to mop off my face.) I’d say we hit almost every single mile on the dot, though, and only lost four people from our twelve-person starting pack. (Two people had to drop back along the way, and each had someone stay back with them.)

If only they could all be this good!

Start time: 7/5/03, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1 (and then 3:2, and then 2:2. Yeesh!)
Average pace: hahahahahahahahaha

Big thanks this week go out to S.L. Viehl, who is my latest sponsor. Thank you so much!

Welcome to Washington DC, home of the world of humidity and heat. That’s perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like much of one. This weekend has been unbearably hot; which made me look forward to being able to start at 6am this Saturday for our 14-mile run.

Except, of course, even at 6am it was still really hot. I have to remind myself that the actual day of the marathon (at the end of October) will be much cooler and more pleasant to run in, because otherwise the thought of doing it would be discouraging at best. We had a small group this week, what with yesterday being Independence Day and all, so just five of us headed out to have a practice run that would be just over half a marathon.

The first six miles went pretty well, but it was right around then that we lost all of our shade and things started heating up in more ways than one. Some of us were dragging more than others, and around the 8.5 mile point, we’d already shifted our running pace down a bit in an effort to keep from going splat. We lost Madelyn about three quarters of a mile later, though, who decided that she was going to catch a group behind us and come in at a slower pace. I’m wondering if I should have done the same, because by the time we hit our second turn around (10 miles in), I was starting to really drag. Nothing was hurting, thank goodness; I was just feeling extraordinarily tired. I kept pushing for two more miles, and then we changed our running ratio again, which kept me going for another mile. With one mile to go, I told my group to just go on and I was going to walk it in.

I’ve heard more stories about “hitting the wall” than I can count, but I don’t think I’d ever actually done so until today. I’ve had a handful of bad running experiences where I felt run-down and needed to slow down a bit, but this was different; this was “I’m going to walk because I can’t run”. So that’s what I did. I stuck my face in a water fountain about half a mile into that last stretch, and it felt absolutely heavenly. Towards the very end of that final mile, I even ran a small stretch just to try and boost my spirits up, because they were pretty low. But all in all, it was a pretty downbeat experience.

In two weeks I’m going to be missing the 16-miler due to being out of town, but hadn’t planned on making it up. Now I’m trying to come up with alternate plans to do so because after such a dreadful 14-miler, the last thing I want to do is have a bad 18-miler as well. Ugh.

Oh well. The last time I had a running session this bad, the next long run went perfectly, so here’s hoping history repeats itself! (And cooler weather, while we’re at it. That would be nice.)