Start time: 11/16/05, 7:50am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 9:53min/mile

I finally forced myself to get up early on a weekday and go running. Sure, I do it on the weekends all the time, but the last time on a weekday where I went running before work rather than after? Apparently March 22nd, 2005… which is also noted as the only time in 2005 up until that point where I’d run before work instead of after. Yeesh.

I decided to give the Arlington Boulevard Trail a try since it was actually daylight; I don’t know how well lit it is at night and wanted my first experience to be one that I could walk away from. Well, I’ve driven up and down Route 50 may times before but it seems the one thing I never noticed is that it’s full of rolling hills, or at least in the portion between 10th Street and Hudson Street. On the whole it went well; the on- and off-ramps for Washington Street didn’t get me killed like I feared, and running back and forth twice on a 1.25-mile stretch that I’d mapped out felt almost like old times. (Even down to segment #2 being the slowest: 11:56, 12:37, 12:31, 12:18.)

I actually had two concerns while out there. The first is a minor one: I need new headphones. My old running headphonese broke months ago and while I’ve been trying to give those earbuds that all my iPods come with a whirl, they just don’t stay in very well. Hopefully a stroll up to Myer Emco will fix that. The second one was a little worrying; around mile 3 it felt like my left foot was on the verge of falling asleep. This is a problem I actually had back in 2002, where it was determined that I have several blood vessels clustered around a nerve in my left foot and when I ran they were expanding and pinching the nerve. The solution turned out to be wearing wider shoes so there was a little more room for my foot in there. Hopefully this was just because I wasn’t wearing thin-enough socks this morning, because the idea of wearing 4E shoes is a little terrifying. (Cue up the circus music.) Fingers crossed!

Oh, and Amy Ray’s “Blender” (from her second solo album Prom) is one of the all-time best running songs ever. Just thought everyone should know that.