Start time: 12/11/06, 2:00pm
Location: North Arlington (Clarendon, Courthouse, Rosslyn)
Distance: 3.4 miles
Average pace: 8:47min/mile

Today’s run is best defined by absence rather than presence. Sans GPS, sans iPod/headphones, sans knee strap, sans knee pain, sans endurance.

The plan (since I had taken a day off, and the weather was so nice) was to just head on out and run and not worry about speed. I also figured I would give running without the knee strap for the first time in years a whirl; it’s been long enough since the mortifying dancing injury that it should be fine. The good news is that the knee did feel fine, which is a relief. On the other hand, I was certainly huffing and puffing by the time I was done. I ended up calling it “good enough” by the time I hit Courthouse Road; it was just about half an hour and that’s what I was looking for more than distance anyway. (I’d mapped out a 4-mile route in case all went well.) Taking a week off after a bad cold stinks, and trying to run after the cold is finally gone stinks too, but it was good to get out there… even if afterwise I actually ended up sitting down on a hillside and caught my breath when I was done. Lung capacity, why hast thou forsaken me?

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=582640

(Subject line courtesy… oh, look it up yourself. But this final line to a very famous speech was running through my head as I hoofed it up and down the streets of Arlington.)