Monthly Archives: July 2008

Try (Not) To Breathe

0, 05mi

Start Time: 7/5/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:52min/mile
Total Miles For July: 14 miles

Well, I’m glad I have a doctor’s appointment for Monday morning. Just like last Saturday, I was having real problems catching my breath while I was out running. Is it allergies? Exercise-induced asthma? Something entirely different? I have no idea, but fortunately I’m not not the doctor. Really, really frustrating, though. It sucked to stop after 5 miles (it was supposed to be 10) but I did the right thing. Maybe I could have toughed the rest out, but I might have just as easily gone splat. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, to use an old chestnut. (8:45, 8:45, 8:51, 9:06, 8:52)

Getting Back into the Groove?

0, 04mi, 05mi

Start Time: 7/1/08, 5:00pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Average Pace: 8:37min/mile
Total Miles For July: 4 miles

Start Time: 7/3/08, 5:00pm
Location: Clarendon, Virginia Square, Ballston
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:54min/mile
Total Miles For July: 9 miles

Last of the catching-up posts, honest! I’ll try and be better about this so it isn’t a flood of posts again.

Tuesday my original plan was to run 3 x 2miles at a fast pace, plus a mile warm up and another cooldown. I was tired before I even began, though, and halfway through the warm-up I knew that it just wasn’t going to happen. So, instead, I just turned it into a 4-mile progressive run, and that went a-ok. (9:02, 8:52, 8:32, 8:02)

On Thursday I was thinking about running a 6-miler, but I’d forgotten that it was extremely hot out. (I know, a whiny trend. I need to get better about the heat this year.) Still, I would have been all right had I not realized around mile 3 that I was already almost out of water. Whoops. Where’s a lemonade stand where you need it? I ended up truncating to five miles with a parched mouth and an empty water bottle for the last three quarters of a mile. I really should plan this a bit better. Still, not a bad run; my goal was just a 9:30min/mile pace as I ran through Arlington, and my splits were distinctly less, even with me halfway through mile 3 deliberately trying to slow down. (8:48, 8:46, 8:57, 9:01, 8:56)

Too Darn Hot, plus Treadmill Fiasco

0, 03mi, treadmill

Start Time: 6/28/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Average Pace: 8:00min/mile
Total Miles For June: 57 miles

Start Time: 6/29/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington, DC
Distance: 3 miles
Average Pace: 9:00min/mile
Total Miles For June: 60 miles

Ugh! Saturday was a dreadful day to be running; already in the high 80s by 7am, and even worse it was so humid it was like breathing water. We had our 3-mile time trial, and it went really badly for me, there no way around it. I completely bonked on the last mile, and I felt so congested and hard to breathe that I actually have a doctor’s appointment about it on July 7th. Hmph.

On Sunday I was going to run a few miles on the treadmill at Charlie’s place, because it was still really darn hot out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the air conditioning unit to work properly (argh) and it was so stiflingly hot I gave up after three miles. Ah well!

On the Road

0, 05mi, 06mi, travel, treadmill

Start Time: 6/24/08, 5:00pm
Location: Long Beach, CA
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:57min/mile
Total Miles For June: 48 miles

Start Time: 6/26/08, 8:00am
Location: Long Beach, CA
Distance: 6 miles
Average Pace: 8:44min/mile
Total Miles For June: 54 miles

I was in Long Beach last week for a business trip, and while Long Beach is lovely (in places), the part I was in… not so much. So I ended up sticking with the treadmills, both times doing a progressive run where I just slowly pushed up the speed over time. A nice time, all in all. Not terribly scenic, but there you go.

New Parks and Trails

0, 09mi, trail

Start Time: 6/21/08, 7:00am
Location: Arlington, Washington DC
Distance: 9 miles
Average Pace: 10:00min/mile
Total Miles For June: 43 miles

Catching up, here! Emma, Donna, Laura, and I ran a route that Emma mapped out on Saturday; we started at Iwo Jima, headed into Georgetown and then through Glover Archibold Park. This part was a lot of trail running, which slowed us down a great deal because huge storms had knocked branches and (at one point) an entire tree onto the trail. Fortunately we were able to crawl over the tree, and we continued, but it was certainly quite interesting. Eventually we exited near the Cathedral, then headed back through Mass Ave, Rock Creek, and then Memorial Bridge. Laura was slowing down a bit towards the end, and I hung back with her—it had been a while since either of us had run a 9-miler.