Category Archives: custis

Red-Faced Running at Pacers

0, 05mi, custis, pacers arlington

Start Time: 5/29/08, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon & Custis Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:37min/mile
Total Miles For May: 51 miles

Phew! It’s been a couple weeks since I tackled the hills of the Custis Trail; I clearly need to do this a little more often. I ran with a new woman, Stacy, who is from Boston and is super-nice. She definitely pushed me through those hills of death, which is a good thing on the way back! (7:23, 8:25, 8:59, 9:13, 8:50, and 2:53 for the .3 mile) I’d forgotten just how hard those hills are, to be honest, and I’m always relieved when it’s over. What doesn’t kill me really does make me stronger, in this case.

Also, I finally decided what I’m going to do with my MarathonGreg website; I’ll turn it into a WordPress site as well and have a good front page that links to the appropriate races and photos and such. That said, it’s going to take a long while to do so. But at least a decision has been made! Once it’s converted, I’ll add all of these entries into it, but it’ll still echo any new posts over here as well.

Back to Pacers!

0, 05mi, custis, pacers arlington, tempo

Start Time: 5/1/08, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon & Custis Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:35min/mile
Total Miles For May: 5 miles

I haven’t run with Pacers in literally a year. So what better time to go back? Katie and Blair wanted to try the Pacers group, and like I said, it had been a while. So we headed on over, and it was a lot of fun. I ran with a woman named Kelsey, and we chatted a great deal for the first half of the 5.4 mile course. (Have I mentioned that for my mile counts this year I’m rounding down to the nearest half-mile? So that’s why it says 5 miles up there.) Of course, the second half is uphill and… ooooooooof. We were both feeling it. We definitely passed a bunch of people on the way back, though, so we weren’t the only ones who were feeling it.

My GPS glitched a bit and claimed that the course was 5.6 miles, so I don’t have quite accurate splits. But here’s what it claimed: 7:30, 7:47, 8:08, 9:01, 8:21, and 5:34 for the last bit. (I’m guessing/hoping mile 4 is the one that had the extra .2 miles. But that was the uphill portion in full blast, so who knows?)

The Things We Do To Ourselves

0, 04mi, custis

Start Time: 3/17/08, 6:30pm
Location: Custis Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Average Pace: 8:48min/mile
Total Miles For March: 34 miles

Sometimes I really wonder about my sanity. The original plan was I’d leave work and go over to the W&OD Trail, knock out 4 or 5 miles, nothing too big. But I left work a little later than I’d hoped, and as I did so I began to think that maybe instead of taking half an hour to drive to the 3.5 marker on the W&OD, I could just head home and be at the Custis Trail in 15 minutes.

You know, the trail that goes straight up and down, and kicks my butt every time I run it? Ho ho ho.

That said, it wasn’t a bad run. Just a tough one. Considering I expected my pace to drop down into the 9:30 range with those hills, I’d say it was pretty good—doubly so when you keep in mind that back when I used to run this every Tuesday and in Alexandria every Thursday, my Tuesday Custis Trail pace was always a solid 30 seconds per mile slower than Thursday. So, victory. (8:44, 9:05, 9:00, 8:25)

Back on Track — now with added hillwork!

0, 01mi, 08mi, custis, explosive, meter repeats

Start Time: 1/5/08, 8:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & 4x100m & 4x400m

Saturday’s session was the return to our group workouts, hurrah! For this run we started off with four 100meter runs, the idea that each one pushing a little harder and in a slightly tougher zone. (20.13, 18.06, 16.30, 15.02) Then, we were to replicate those four zones over the course of 400meter repeats, with each quarter of the track faster than the one before. It was fun but tough, ratcheting each segment up a little more. While my times decreased for the second and third, my transitions were getting stronger each time, and it made sense that I was a tiny bit more pooped with each one.

For the fourth, though, Fred said that our goal was to go faster than the first. And… much to my surprise… I did! Hurrah! (1:31, 1:34, 1:40, 1:28)

Start Time: 1/7/08, 6:30pm
Location: Custis Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Average Pace: 9:19min/mile

Back in the day, I used to regularly run part of the Custis Trail as part of a group workout. (About a mile and a quarter of its distance, then back.) But it had been a while, and the weather was so fantastic on Monday that I decided I’d go tackle an 8-miler on the Custis Trail.

Ooooooof.

When I ran with the group on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my times on Thursdays would always be much faster than Tuesdays, and this was no exception with a 9:19 average, even as I felt I was putting in an 8:30/8:45 amount of effort. Phew. That’ll learn me! (9:10, 9:12, 9:04, 9:30, 9:07, 9:22, 9:20, 9:47)

Scavenger Hunt

0, 05mi, custis, pacers arlington

Start time: 5/3/07, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon and the Custis Trail
Distance: 5.4 miles
Average pace: 8:57min/mile

This was both fun and deadly; a scavenger hunt as part of a running route. It started out like the normal Tuesday Clarendon run from Pacers, but we went the opposite direction on the Custis Trail and ran a little over an extra mile as a result. The course? Also full of hills. Yay, hills.

But hey, I won a $100 gift certificate so I’m not complaining!

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=921565