Start time: 7/18/09, 6:30am
Location: All over DC
Distance: 14 miles
Average pace: 10:06min/mile
Total Miles For July: 45 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 424 miles

Phew! Been a while since I had a 6:30am start... and did quite so many hills. The run started out well; we went from the SW Waterfront to Hains Point, then over the 14th St Bridge into Virginia where we ran up the Mt. Vernon Trail along the Potomac all the way to where it ends at the Key Bridge. That wasn't so bad, but then once we went over Key Bridge we started heading up 34th Street... and up... and up... and up... yeeeeaaah. Hills and I don't get along so much these days, especially since they are where I injure myself. But I survived, thankfully, and after we went around the Naval Observatory and down Mass Ave it wasn't so bad. From there it was pretty simple (P St to Connecticut to Lafayette Square to the Mall) and aside from missing a light at the very end and suddenly ending up half a block behind everyone else (oops), pretty enjoyable.

More importantly it sure does feel good to have burnt off about 1600 calories. I swear, at times this is why I still run. My waistline demands it!

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3015563

Start time: 2/7/09, 12:00pm
Location: Washington DC and Arlington
Distance: 14 miles
Average pace: 9:48min/mile
Total Miles For February: 26 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 71 miles

Well, the good news first: I had a great first 11.5 miles! That said, the last 2.5 miles? Ugh.

I am hoping the problem was related to dehydration; I made a big mistake when I plotted out my route (down Route 50 to Iwo Jima, run south past Memorial Bridge to 14th St Bridge, cross and run around the Tidal Basin to the Washington Monument, down one side of the Mall and up the other, then along Constitution to Lincoln Memorial, up the Potomac to Georgetown, and finally across Key Bridge and along the Custis Trail to get home) in that I had not even thought of the fact that most water fountains would be turned off because it's the winter. So when I went to refill my water bottle around mile 8.5 (and I probably hadn't drank enough to that point as it was), no dice. Oops. Also, it turns out that Thompson's Boat House is closed for the winter as well.

Fortunately, one restaurant had an outside bar set up (because it was a glorious 55 degrees!) and the bartender refilled my water there, but the damage was already done. I had some calf cramps over the last 2.5 miles, and the slow downs are rather noticeable. On the bright side, up until that point the only dips in pace were when I had to dodge hordes of tourists, so yay for that! I'm also resolving to be better about stretching every day, I know I've been a little lax in that. It's been almost two years since I've had these cramps show up, so hopefully better hydration and better stretching will keep them away again.

It was fun to just run all over the area, rather than just up and down the W&OD like I have on so many other runs. A little change of scenery is always nice.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2543056

(8:00, 9:13, 8:55, 9:33, 9:33, 9:55, 9:24, 9:50, 9:19, 9:29, 10:07, 11:09, 11:26, 11:24)

Start Time: 7/19/08, 6:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 14 miles
Average Pace: 9:16min/mile
Total Miles For July: 59.5 miles

It was going to be a hot day today, so our running coach had said he was cutting our planned 14-miler short a bit, suggesting everyone break it up into two 7-milers. Did I do that? Bah! Instead, my plan was to get up early and go to the run site about an hour early and knock out 6-7 miles before they got there (and the heat got bad), then run the other 7 with them and all would be good.

Weeeelll, except that I got a late start and instead of having an hour beforehand, only had half an hour. Still, I knocked out 4 miles on my own, then got back just as they were about to begin. So, I ran 7 miles with Laura and Donna, then pushed through another 3 miles on my own. Victory! It wasn't too bad, aside from the fact that the last three miles had no shade whatsoever. I could really feel my strength sapping, especially in mile 12, which was the worst of it. Oof! Uphill and in the hot sun! But all done now, so hurrah for that.

(9:19, 8:54, 9:04, 8:55, 9:09, 9:13, 8:58, 9:17, 9:07, 9:16, 9:28, 9:52, 9:26, 9:19)

Start time: 7/8/07, 7:00am
Location: C&O Canal Towpath & Cap Crescent Trail
Distance: 14 miles
Average pace: 9:37min/mile

The DC area is a little warm right now. High of 98 degrees, which is needless to say not the most pleasant weather in which to run. Before we even began, it was stressed to us that we weren't concentrating on time today; just focus on getting the distance done. After our speed demons zipped off, it was just four of us: Aaron, Laura, and Paul. We stuck together for about 9.5 miles, and while we were starting to slow down we were still doing well. As we hit another water stop, I noticed that Laura had refilled quickly and zoomed off. The guys wanted to walk for a minute and I decided that sounded good, so we watched Laura turn into a dot on the horizon. After about a mile and a half, though, Aaron and Paul were slowing down more and more, and then took another walk break that seemed to never end. Finally, I decided to keep running because I just couldn't bear to be moving that slowly. (Also, I had a breakfast brunch to attend for my friend Britt.)

So, running along, I finally saw the next water stop ahead around the 12.5 mile mark, and Laura refilling as well. (Plus Julie, who unfortunately having some knee problems. Boo.) It turned out she knew that when we were back in the sun, she would start fading, so she headed off at the previous stop so she could get caught by us instead of behind us at the end. Laura and I crossed over onto the Capital Crescent Trail (shade! shade! shade!) and we finished together and strong. It was a really hard run, but at the same time it was also pretty rewarding to have finished. Phew!

Start time: 08/27/06, 7:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:48min/mile

We started off the run today with a whopping five runners; myself, Stephanie, Emma, Chris S., and Rick. Or, as we joked at one point, "four staff members and a participant." We lost Chris four mies in, but that was actually to be expected because he'd only planned on running eight miles. Up through this point we were all going pretty strong, despite it being a muggy, humid sort of morning once we'd left the waterfront area. We began to lose a bit of momentum after that, though. The weather was dragging us down, but it seemed like something more as well. Just one of those runs where partway through you realize that (unlike my 12-miler two weeks ago) you aren't going to be able to just power through it like there's no tomorrow.

About six and a half miles in (on the Capital Crescent Trail) Stephanie started to slow down a bit and offered to wait for the next group to come back. She's coming off of a bad cold and all things considered was being a real trooper when she wasn't really back up to her full capacity. Since Emma and I were going to mark the turn-around on the trail, we zipped up the last half mile, chalked all over the place, and let Rick and Stephanie catch us there. From there we headed back, but Stephanie soon decided (wisely) that she really just needed to drop back a bit. She and Rick decided to run together until a slower group caught us, so Emma and I continued onwards.

Except, of course, we were starting to fade as well. We pushed each other through as best we could, and I knew I was starting to warm up when I first welcomed a water volunteer pouring water on my head, and then ended up taking my shirt off for the last mile and a half. These are the End Times, people. Once we finished up, though, we got word that a runner needed locating on the Capital Crescent Trail, so after grabbing half a banana we threw Emma's bike into my car and headed up to Thompson's Boathouse so she could start biking in from there. Naturally, no sooner did we get there than the runner resurfaced... phew! That was a real relief.

So, a tough run for everyone involved. I don't think anyone (except for maybe Rick, super-runner-extraordinaire) in our group had a "great" run by any stretch of the imagination. But we all finished, and we all made the right choices, and I'm quite pleased with that.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=364978

Start time: 07/09/05, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

Beauty. It was hard getting up for a 6am start time again, but that was the toughest thing for me about today. Mike was our new pace group leader, although I stuck by him up at the front to help set the pace since it's a tricky thing to do for the first time with a large group. Boom, boom, boom: we knocked those miles out with little difficulty. Even better, now that we're going out to the Vienna Community Center, the obligatory bathroom break wasn't so killer since there are multiple bathrooms to use for everyone who needs them. (I must admit, I like going in just for the air-conditioning and the allure of paper towels to mop off my face.) I'd say we hit almost every single mile on the dot, though, and only lost four people from our twelve-person starting pack. (Two people had to drop back along the way, and each had someone stay back with them.)

If only they could all be this good!

Start time: 7/5/03, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1 (and then 3:2, and then 2:2. Yeesh!)
Average pace: hahahahahahahahaha

Big thanks this week go out to S.L. Viehl, who is my latest sponsor. Thank you so much!

Welcome to Washington DC, home of the world of humidity and heat. That's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn't feel like much of one. This weekend has been unbearably hot; which made me look forward to being able to start at 6am this Saturday for our 14-mile run.

Except, of course, even at 6am it was still really hot. I have to remind myself that the actual day of the marathon (at the end of October) will be much cooler and more pleasant to run in, because otherwise the thought of doing it would be discouraging at best. We had a small group this week, what with yesterday being Independence Day and all, so just five of us headed out to have a practice run that would be just over half a marathon.

The first six miles went pretty well, but it was right around then that we lost all of our shade and things started heating up in more ways than one. Some of us were dragging more than others, and around the 8.5 mile point, we'd already shifted our running pace down a bit in an effort to keep from going splat. We lost Madelyn about three quarters of a mile later, though, who decided that she was going to catch a group behind us and come in at a slower pace. I'm wondering if I should have done the same, because by the time we hit our second turn around (10 miles in), I was starting to really drag. Nothing was hurting, thank goodness; I was just feeling extraordinarily tired. I kept pushing for two more miles, and then we changed our running ratio again, which kept me going for another mile. With one mile to go, I told my group to just go on and I was going to walk it in.

I've heard more stories about "hitting the wall" than I can count, but I don't think I'd ever actually done so until today. I've had a handful of bad running experiences where I felt run-down and needed to slow down a bit, but this was different; this was "I'm going to walk because I can't run". So that's what I did. I stuck my face in a water fountain about half a mile into that last stretch, and it felt absolutely heavenly. Towards the very end of that final mile, I even ran a small stretch just to try and boost my spirits up, because they were pretty low. But all in all, it was a pretty downbeat experience.

In two weeks I'm going to be missing the 16-miler due to being out of town, but hadn't planned on making it up. Now I'm trying to come up with alternate plans to do so because after such a dreadful 14-miler, the last thing I want to do is have a bad 18-miler as well. Ugh.

Oh well. The last time I had a running session this bad, the next long run went perfectly, so here's hoping history repeats itself! (And cooler weather, while we're at it. That would be nice.)