Bleah

12mi, custis

Start time: 8/28/10, 6:00am
Location: Iwo Jima Memorial, Custis Trail, W&OD Trail, Bluemont Trail, Glebe Rd, Washington Blvd, Clarendon Blvd
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 10:27min/mile
Total Miles For August: 68 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 460 miles

That was an uncomfortable 12-miler. I ran the first seven miles with Jim, Michael, and Steve (they were tackling a 20-miler), and with them we circled Iwo Jima before running the length of the Custis Trail. “I always forget just how bad these hills are,” Steve said to me about halfway down the Custis Trail, and I nodded in agreement. (But we did run into Katie out for her 60-mile bike ride, so hurrah!)

When we got to Bluemont, I bid them adieu, hit the bathroom, and then started heading home. It was around then that I began to feel a little sick to my stomach; with 20/20 hindsight I should’ve headed directly home (there was a 3-mile direct path at that point) but I pushed through the remaining five, never feeling terribly good at any single moment through them. When I got home I stepped on the scale and was down around 4.5 pounds due to water loss. Yeesh. Been doing a lot of rehydrating today. Also, of the three flavors of “Vita Coco” (a coconut water brand), the coconut and pineapple is the winner so far.

I signed up a while ago on a spur of the moment for the Parks Half Marathon, which is in two weeks, and also the same weekend as SPX. Was originally thinking I could still tackle it on that Sunday, but right now I am leaning towards a big ol’ no. If so, this will be an unusual record year for me, with three races I signed up for and then did not run. (The others being the Washington DC Triathlon, and the Toronto Half Marathon in October.) Even with two races I am pretty sure that is a new record, now that I think about it.

(10:12, 10:20, 10:57, 10:38, 10:51, 10:03, 10:16, 9:51, 10:32, 10:29, 10:52, 10:13)

5 thoughts on “Bleah”

  1. I did the Parks half a couple years ago — was so hot that I had to give up on any hope of a PR. One of my Treasury colleagues died, apparently he didn’t respect the heat 🙁 But it is a nice course, along the trails I usually train on. September is just too iffy, weatherwise (and October is becoming that way, with global warming).

    1. Oooh, I think I even know what weekend you’re talking about. I had looked up photos from the 2008 race to see what it looked like and noticed almost everyone was shirtless. Then I looked up exactly what was going on that weekend and found my own journal entries talking about being up in Cape Cod and how the entire East Coast was having a scorching heat wave and how glad I wasn’t at home where it was even worse… 🙁

      If it’s that hot, I think I will just scratch it. I’m already going to be slightly tired from doing SPX stuff all day Saturday, unfortunately. That plus heat will be a disaster in the making. Otherwise… well, we’ll see.

    1. I completely and utterly understand and kind of agree. I’m glad a day or two later that I ran it, and I know it will make me stronger, but boy does it kick my ass.

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