Start time: 01/12/06, 6:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles & 2 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1 & all running
Average pace: 10:24min/mile and 8:51min/mile

Julie and I had another four miler together on Thursday; she’s been concentrated on getting her speed up and was aiming her sites at the 10:30 speed. Well, she hit it and did a great job, especially when you look at our mile splits: 10:35, 10:28, 10:14, and 10:20. When we finished, Julie said, “I feel like a badass,” and my response was, “That’s because you are.” After two months off because of injury, she’s doing fantastic at hitting her new goals. Yay!

I was definitely a bit tired after that and my additional 2 miles were slower than on Tuesday; I told Julie later that it was because she wore me out, and it’s so true. My half mile splits? Well, I’m certainly consistent. 4:22, 4:29, 4:22, and 4:29. What’s with those seven extra seconds on the back half of each mile? (Ironically, not even the same parts of the trail.)

Start time: 01/10/06, 6:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles & 2 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1 & all running
Average pace: 10:50min/mile and 8:35min/mile

First, a funny side-story. After planning on doing so for a while now, I started doing stomach crunches on Sunday. The idea was to start with with a reasonable amount, then add a few more on every day for a nice slow-and-steady build up. So I did the crunches on Sunday, added a few more on Monday morning, then got up this morning and… ow. My abs were not happy. So, new rule: on days when I’m going running, I don’t have to do stomach crunches. Phew! (I could still feel the soreness when I ran today, though.)

Anyway, Julie and I ran four miles together at a 6:1. Julie seemed to handle them pretty well, and I let her set the pace. I know she wants to build her speed back up, so once she’s used to these I’m going suggest picking the pace itself up a bit. The splits were actually back and forth, back and forth: 10:37, 10:59, 10:37, 11:05. Afterwards Julie headed out and I was going to do the same, but at the last second I decided to take two more miles and do them a bit faster; preparing, as you will, for possibly running with the speedies again.

For these other two miles I took splits for each half mile: 4:13, 4:13, 4:24, and 4:18. Very consistent early on, then slowing down a tiny bit later. It felt great to speed up, though. I’d love to be able to sustain that speed for longer distances—a goal to work towards.

Start time: 01/04/06, 6:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5.5:1
Average pace: 11:04min/mile

I’d talked with Julie about shifting the run:walk ratio up to a 6:1 with the New Year, and she agreed to give a 5.5:1 shift a try on Wednesday. Since the past couple of runs I’ve done with her have averaged between 11:15 and 11:40min/miles, I was curious to see how just the 30-second addition would do. It’s a little hard to say but I think it helped a bit; 11:03, 11:04, 11:23, 10:44 for the splits. I’m curious what a fifth mile would’ve meant for mile #4–back up to 11 or down towards 11:30?

Either way, a faster pace certainly doesn’t bother me; when most of the group was gasping and groaning last Saturday I still felt really good. Now that Julie’s been back out on the trail regularly for a month hopefully everything’ll start really coming back for her.

Start time: 12/31/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 10:45min/mile

Another Saturday morning run… the last one of the year. It was a bit rough; Mark took the lead and was hitting 10:30s and 10:15s for the first four miles, which was clearly killing some people in the group. I offered up several times, “Uh, Mark, you’re losing the group” and he would slow down briefly and then rev back up. Julie finally quit after four miles, and after mile five, Chanty and I moved to the front of the group and reset the pace. Chanty and John were both having problems with the faster pace, and even Craig did not look terribly happy. Once we were in the front (and credit where it’s due, Chanty was doing the best job of setting an 11min pace) it seemed to work better for everyone. Chanty and I stopped after ten miles, and the remaining three guys looked like death warmed over. Mark wanted to run 14 for his marathon training, but I’ve got nothing to prove so we waved goodbye and sent them on their way. If I hear about corpses on the side of the W&OD I’ll know what happened next.

This is the first year that I’ve tracked my milage for all 12 months instead of just the “marathon training” ones, so I don’t have complete data to compare against past years. Here, however, is a ranking of mileage for the year. (Some of the strange mileage is from running 1.25 mile loops, plus some 5K and 10K races thrown in for good measure.)

November: 25.3
March: 37.45
February: 38.5
January: 42.45
April: 52.2
July: 65.5
December: 66
May: 68.3
June: 76
September: 76
August: 88
October: 103.2
TOTAL: 732.9

That October figure is still blowing my mind; my previous high was October 2004 with 91.95. Crazy!

Aaaaand, that’s a wrap. Onto 2006!

Start time: 12/22/05, 6:00pm
Location: Custis Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:13min/mile

Start time: 12/24/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 6 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 10:55min/mile

Start time: 12/27/05, 6:00pm
Location: Custis Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:25min/mile

Oops! I’ve been a little remiss in updating here. The only big news is that the Custis Trail is hilly. Very very hilly. Julie and I have continued to run on it for our weekday runs and we pushed through an additional mile on Monday… yep, more hills. It never looked that hilly from my glimpses of it as I drove by along I-66, but perhaps that’s because my attention was better focused on, oh, the road.

Perhaps the biggest sign of its hills is the difference in our pace between running on the Custis Trail versus the W&OD Trail. Julie has moved that Custis is now called “The Billy Goat Trail” and I’m all for that. Hopefully I’ll get to go running on Saturday because I think I’m going to unavoidably miss running between now and then due to other commitments. One final run before the end of the year sounds good, though.

Start time: 12/19/05, 6:00pm
Location: Custis Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:40min/mile

Julie and I went running again on Monday, but sick of the snow and ice still clogging the W&OD we instead veered off onto the Custis Trail itself for a change. The new scenery was nice, even though half of it is nothing more than a view of I-66, boy oh boy. We guess-timated where the second mile would end (because we started on the overlap with the W&OD and I don’t have my fantastic new gift of a running GPS unit functioning just yet) based on the fact that we were feeling sluggish, and later I mapped it out on the Gmap Pedometer and it seems to have been pretty dead-on accurate. So, a little slower than normal but right now I’m just A) happy to be running on a weekday, and B) really happy to see Julie getting the mileage back up and her body clearly having an easier time of it than last week.

Hopefully, another 4-miler tomorrow (Thursday), some short distance on Saturday, and maybe even another short distance on Sunday if it’s not raining. It’s nice to have that afternoon break from my family on Christmas, even if it’s just for half an hour. It’s a big reset/recharge button in need of pressing.

Start time: 12/17/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

Seven of us were foolish enough to decide to brave the W&OD Trail again this morning, which is pretty respectable numbers for winter running based on past experiences. Portions of the trail are still clogged by snow and ice, so one has to be careful; a lot of running off of the trail and alongside through the snow on the grass was necessary to keep from sliding to one’s death (or at least a broken ankle). Julie and Katie ended up just running four, while Chanty stuck it out for ten miles. Mark, Randy, Craig, and I were insane enough to do the full twelve that Mark had marked down for his marathon training schedule; I still have no idea if anyone besides Randy (and even that’s really up in the air) is going to actually run the Frederick Marathon, mind you. Once Mark starts upping the distance some more I’ll probably be cutting out early unless I see a marathon that I’m desperate to run.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I ran into first Pam, then Katie G on the trail. I came seriously close to smacking Pam on the butt (she had headphones on and didn’t know I was coming) but there was that 5% chance that it might not have really been Pam and just looked like her from behind. That’s always hard to explain.

Start time: 12/14/05, 5:45pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:15min/mile

Julie and I went running yesterday after work and unlike Tuesday I remembered to bring my hat and gloves this time. Phew! Unfortunately, the temperature outside was even colder than before and instead of the top of my head and my fingers feeling like they were ice, my face felt like it was going to freeze and then fall off. Oof. We pushed out three miles (and ran into Mark off running a 6-miler at one point). Brrrr, I’ll look forward to some warmth returning this spring.

Start time: 12/13/05, 6:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:05min/mile

Last week I told Julie that if her toe got green light for running again, that we’d start going after work (despite the rather dark conditions) and hoofing it up and down the W&OD. I’ve had bad motivation problems in getting up early and running, and I knew that Julie was in the same boat. With the broken toe, things were even more problematic; after running the 26-miler in October 1st she promptly broke the toe, and all she’d run since then was the marathon on October 30th.

So, Julie asked for a 3-miler to get her back into the swing of things. I said “sure!” and away we went. We ran on the Custis Trail portion of the W&OD since it’s A) well lit, and B) plowed clear of snow. So what we ended up doing was starting at marker 5, running to marker 4, turning around and going back to 4.5, then back to 4 again, and finally finishing at 5. (The Custis veers off right after mile marker #4 and while the logical turn would be to just run on the Custis further, so far as I can tell it doesn’t have its own mile markers.) For someone who hasn’t run in a month and a half (and hadn’t run for a month before that), Julie did fantastic. She was convinced that she was dragging us down (when we finished she even said, “So how slow was I?”) but our splits were 10:46, 11:09, and 11:19. Not bad at all after such a long break (and then freezing once we were out there).

I’m not 100% sure if we’ll get another weekday run in tomorrow or not but next week we’ll hopefully back into the twice-a-week-after-work schedule. It felt really good to me to be back out there other than a Saturday morning.