Start Time: 8/16/08, 6:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 18 miles
Average Pace: 9:33min/mile
Total Miles For August: 53 miles

18! Always a good distance to hit, because to quote the old chestnut, “If you can run 18 miles, you can run a marathon.” It was a really small crowd, and most people were only running 13 miles—just me and Laura for the full 18. We were all of a mile and a half out when naturally, nature made a call. I told Laura to go on ahead, and then I hustled to catch her (which explains the jump in miles 2 and 3). The two of us kept going together, but at mile 5 Laura’s knee suddenly hurt very badly and suddenly. We paused for a few seconds, but it seemed to be fine. (Fortunately, at mile 5 we were also right by home base again.) Then, at mile 6.5 it happened again, so she turned around and walked the mile and a half back to start, while I headed on alone.

I picked up the pace a bit at that point (being by myself and all), and it felt really good. I ran out to the Vienna Community Center, filled up my water bottle, popped a salt packet (the sun had come out in full brightness) and then started heading back. Instead of helping, though, the salt packet just made my stomach feel horrible the whole way back. Ugh. To top it off, a combination of very mild dehydration* and not getting much sleep over the the past week caught up with me after I’d finished up mile 16, and the last two were a real struggle to finish. For both of them I ended up taking a walk break along the way to really regroup and get moving again, which helped a lot. Still, not bad otherwise. And I like to think that had I been running with anyone else for those last two miles, I’d have pushed a little harder. But I knew no one else from my group was out there, that portion of the trail was oddly empty, and I just didn’t care.

* — Even after drinking two bottles of water upon finishing, two freezie pops, and a little bit of my vanilla soy protein drink when I got home, the scale said that in-between leaving the house and then getting back I’d dropped 3.5 lbs. Yikes. That is a bit too much in terms of water loss. I think the cool start to the morning made me a little complacent about proper hydration, coupled with not enough Friday preparation.

9:50, 8:46, 8:58, 9:52, 10:06, 10:02, 9:25, 9:12, 8:56, 9:10, 9:18, 9:15, 9:07, 9:28, 9:17, 9:30, 10:44, 10:57