Category Archives: 08mi

Familiar territory

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 09/17/06, 12:45pm
Location: W&OD Trail, markers 3.5 to 7.5 (and back)
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:44min/mile

I knew I was missing this morning’s group run (if the word “group” really applies!) because on Saturday I had a 6:15am start-time for our MCM runners, followed by a 1pm birthday lunch for a friend and then a 5pm birthday evening celebration for another friend. Since the last one would no doubt run late (and there would be lots of food and alcohol between the two different events), waking up for a 7am run just wasn’t happening. So I promised myself that I’d get out there in the afternoon and make up the 8-miler.

Well, I’m glad I finished the run; I was definitely dragging a tiny bit here and there. Ultimately it was just me and the iPod shuffle hoofing it up and down the W&OD Trail (which I decided to run for old time’s sake). Kind of a quiet run, really. A little warm in places—I do wish I’d been able to get out there a little earlier, but ah well! I should be glad I got there at all, really. And as an added bonus, I was wearing new sporty-looking shorts that grok had passed on to me. Yay!

Oozing my way across DC

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 07/16/06, 7:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:53min/mile

Dang, it sure was sticky and humid this morning… everyone looked like moving puddles of sweat.

Stephanie was back so I ended up running with her. We were on pace for a lot, then definitely slowed down a bit at the end. No splits, alas, so I’ve got to go entirely based on my total time. Not quite up to par but considering the conditions and that last week at this time I was at an 11min/mile, I’m more than satisfied. Next week I might have to run with the 10min group since Stephanie may have to work, mind you, so we’ll see how that goes!

The Passion Of The Greg

0, 08mi

Start time: 04/15/06, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

I went out running with last year’s training group on Saturday (the day before Easter, thus the thoroughly unwitty subject for this entry); it was a large group, with me, Julie, Ali, Alma, Carla, Craig, Katie, Mark, Randy, and Craig’s brothers Jeff and Scott. We headed out slow, and halfway through mile two we had several people hit a bathroom break, so we were off to a slow start. (12:09, 12:24) Before long we got our groove, and miles 3-6 involved a bunch of speeding up by the group. (11:04, 11:27, 10:42, 10:30) The group had started to stretch apart around the end of that stretch, though, and around mile 6.5 there was a sudden shuffle at the front and Katie was about 75 feet ahead of everyone else while the people she was running with had suddenly started dropping back quickly. I had been content to stay with the main part of the group (for me the run was as much social as it was exercise since aside from Julie I won’t be training with any of them this year) so Jeff and I ran ahead and caught her and took the last part of it in. (10:17, 9:19)

What can I say, Katie’s fast. It still amazes me to this day that she did not utterly crush me at the marathon (like she did at the Cherry Blossom 10-miler). I’m just happy that half of the time I can keep up with her, or alternately that she humors me by letting me think so!

Scouting out the new territory

0, 08mi

Start time: 04/09/06, 10:00am
Location: Waterside and National Mall
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: ~10:30min/mile

Since the new AIDS Marathon season starts in a month, and this year I’m a site assistant at the Waterside location, I figured it would be a good thing to get to know the area. This, in no small part, because I’ve never actually been there before aside from visiting a friend that used to live around there. I shanghaied grok and made him show me around the area. It went really nicely, despite huge crowds on the National Mall. Lots of dodging of people, sudden detours and loop arounds, and such, but still really enjoyable. It’s fun to run in a new neck of the woods, especially one as iconic as the monuments area of DC. I’ve never actually run down there aside from in a race, so it was nice to do so in a relaxed state of mind.

Phew.

0, 08mi

Start time: 01/22/06, 1:45pm
Location: Custis Trail and a bit of the W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 10:03min/mile

Tod and Bug were having their open house today, so while Bug and Lucy watched some Battlestar Galactica, Tod and I hoofed it up and down the Custis Trail. I’m not kidding about the up and down part, either. I already knew the first mile and a half of the Custis Trail was Hill City, but now I know… the next portion of the trail is just as crazy. Phew! We ran about 5.5 miles worth of Custis Trail (annoyingly, where Custis strikes the W&OD is about a quarter mile past Custis’s 0 mile marker) and supplemented with a bit of the W&OD, the latter of which was blessedly flat.

It was a great run, though. Really tiring, don’t get me wrong, but considering the amount of climbing we did (oh, how I hate going up hills and how they hate me) I think we did fantastic.

Although since Julie’s going to be out of town and I’ll run by myself on Tuesday, my original plan to jump onto the Custis Trail then is now sounding decidedly mad. Better think this through carefully; up and down after a long day at work? Maybe I’ll just run Tuesday morning on the Arlington Boulevard Trail.

(Oh, and as of this morning? 3.5 of the 5 pounds I wanted back off of me are gone. Half a pound until I’m at the top edge of my 3-pound range I was in before depressive eating started, a pound-and-a-half until I’m squarely in the middle of it again. Phew.)

The Winter Season

0, 08mi

Start time: 11/12/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 10:30min/mile

Saturday morning I met up with a handful of people from my pace group (Ali, Carla, John, Mark, and Randy) for a nice and brisk 8-miler. I say brisk because it was a wee bit nippy outside; between a running jacket (that later went around my waist as I warmed up) and some shirt layers, though, life was good. It felt good to be out with the group again, and more importantly after last Tuesday’s crash-and-burn jaunt around the neighborhood it was also quite nice to get back into the swing of things.

It’s always a big mystery to see who will actually show up throughout the winter. Mark and Randy are definites, of course; they were out most weekends last year too, and they’re both probably going to run the Frederick Marathon at the end of April. It’ll be nice to have the others as well with us, though. They’re all great people and it really does make the time pass by so much more enjoyably. (And Julie, of course, will be back as well once her toe finishes healing. Right now she’s taking all of November off so hopefully… fingers crossed… Christmas will come early this year.)

Not too much else to report, other than it was nice to have the group moving a little faster than our normal group runs and everyone seeming to be good about it!

Last recovery run

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 10/22/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

Saturday morning was our final group recovery run (and only one of a handful I did with the group because of speed training). It was nice to see a bunch of my fellow pace group members again, and good to see Steve and Christa one last time pre-marathon (since they’ll be off in Ireland next weekend supporting the AIDS Marathoners running the Dublin Marathon). The run itself went well; most of the group was doing fine, although Julie turned around early and just ran 5 miles because of her still-healing toe (and Kris did the same because of his knee problems).

Now all I’ve got is a couple of maintenance runs ahead of me. All this rain better go away stat, though.

Oh, and as an added bonus, there was a mini raffle/prize giveaway and I ended up with a warm hat for running in the winter. Yay! Now that I have virtually no hair on top of my head, I could use one.

Group In Recovery

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 09/17/05, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

After last week’s 23-miler, throughout the week I ran… nothing! No guilt about it, either. It was a really busy week and with everything else going on, I wanted to try and get a little running time to just let my brain reset, but in the end a week off after a long run was just fine in my book.

Apparently it was also just fine for almost all of the rest of my group to skip the 8-mile “recovery run” scheduled for this Saturday. Out of the 20+ people in our pace group, we had a whopping total of… six. That said, it was a really nice run. Julie, Carla, John, Laura, Katie, and I went at a pretty good clip, and it was just nice to have a small group with which to chit-chat about anything and everything under the sun. (And apparently the race staging ground this year will be in the North Pentagon Parking Lot instead of Rosslyn. Naturally this change was made now that I have moved just a leisurely stroll away from the old starting area in Rosslyn. Bah!)

Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good people who weren’t at our run site, but there’s something to be said for the nice small group. Having speed training instead of recovery runs has been fantastic but with only three recovery runs scheduled I have sort of missed the small-group-experience.

Need for Speed, part 3

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon, speedwork

Start time: 08/14/05, 7:00am
Location: American University
Distance: 8 miles
Average pace: 9:30min/mile

Yay! More speedwork! This time was at our new location—the track at American University, my old roommate Marc’s law school alma mater. This was my first time actually getting to run speedwork on the track and I’ve got to say that for consistency’s sake you can’t beat it one bit.

I was supposed to be knocking out 9:30min/miles, and let’s put it this way: I don’t need to do the fancy little chart from last week because I was so on the money. I was hitting my times down to the quarter mile for the first five miles perfectly, and for the last three I actually came in a little fast thanks to running the initial eighth-mile about five seconds fast. (On the final one I also finished fast but I think it was due to excitement of being done.) But yeah, really consistent times for me: 9:33, 9:26, 9:31, 9:30, 9:31, 9:20, 9:21, 9:16.

Big props also go to those kind enough to wait; while I wasn’t the slowest person there, I was the slowest one that actually ran 8 miles so for the final mile it was just me on the track feeling a tiny bit silly. Maybe that also had something to do with deciding that I was drenched after five miles and ditching the shirt. (That breeze sure felt nice, though.) And having to dodge the randomly-activating sprinklers which weren’t positioned quite right, unless they really are supposed to wet the track a bit as well…

I’m really loving the speedwork program; I can’t believe I never did this before.

7am and all is well

08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 06/04/05, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

When our training group switches over to 7am runs, we often have a few people miss it because they’ve completely forgotten about the time change. We still had nine zillion runners this week in our group, so that was the end of that idea! I took half the group out (Pam was running the Race for the Cure) and we did really well, staying on pace pretty much the whole way through. It’s a good group of people and while due to the numbers we’re all still getting to know each other, they seem nice.

Must remember to buy more Clif Shots later today. I’m down to my emergency Vanillas, and if that isn’t incentive, I don’t know what is. (Well, ok, I also have a box full of Apple Cinnamon Carb Booms but those I save for long runs to use as rewards, because they’re so delicious…)