Start time: 3/6/12, 6:10am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 6.5 miles
Average pace: 9:05min/mile
Total Miles For March: 22 miles
Total Miles For 2012: 210 miles
Current Shoes: 6 miles

It was just me this morning, so I decided that since I wanted to hit the gym anyway, I’d just drive there and run through (more or less) my old route in the Ballston/Clarendon/Court House neighborhood of Arlington. It was a lot of fun to see the old sights again, as well as to see just how much new stuff’s gone into Clarendon in my absence. Some hills had me huffing and puffing as much as before, and all in all it was a pleasant experience to head back through there for a change. Plus, new shoes. (Time to restart the clock!) The springiness in them compared to the old ones is startling.

Start time: 12/24/11, 8:00am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 8.25 miles
Average pace: 10:08min/mile
Total Miles For December: 74 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 718 miles
Current Shoes: 8 miles

Swapped out for the new shoes today, and boy, they sure do feel instantly springier. Hopefully this’ll fix the knee problem from Thursday; it was still a little sore but it never got any worse and faded away with time. Fingers crossed!

Start time: 8/18/11, 5:50am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 10:16min/mile
Total Miles For August: 32 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 462 miles
Current Shoes: 5 miles

Looks like it was, indeed, the need for new shoes that was causing the knee problems. Again. So now I’m adding an additional thing to track from run-to-run, since I clearly can’t be trusted to keep a mental bookmark on when it’s time to buy new ones…

(9:14, 10:28, 10:56, 10:26, 10:10)

Start time: 3/17/11, 6:40pm
Location: Vienna, VA
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 9:11min/mile
Total Miles For March: 41 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 139 miles

The plan was simple; go to my parents’ house and pick up an old bike to take to Goodwill, plus drive my mom’s car around the block, and go for a short run. I got there a little bit after 5:30.

Over an hour later, I gave up trying to jump my mom’s car by myself, but by that point I was tired and stressed, and while a run sounded like the way to drop that stress it never really happened. By the last time I went through the (to be fair not terribly steep, but numerous) hills on the way back I was physically and mentally done for the day. Just one of those afternoons where you don’t feel good when you’re done, but I am glad I pushed through the discouragement of the day.

(8:51, 8:47, 9:05, 9:31, 9:37)

Start time: 10/26/10, 8:15am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:59min/mile
Total Miles For October: 37 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 554 miles

Eh, I’ve had better. My own fault, really, after not getting in enough runs during the week as of late. Really pooped out in the middle but tried to rally towards the end.

On the bright side, the new computer is now up and running so I just backdated two other entries as well. Yay for functioning technology…

(8:41, 8:40, 9:10, 9:44, 8:42)

Start time: 6/13/10, 7:00am
Location: Cap Crescent Trail (Georgetown to Maryland state line and back)
Distance: 8 miles
Average pace: 9:52min/mile
Total Miles For June: 20 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 300 miles

Finally, a run in which I don’t feel 100% dead by the mile three point. And of course, on one of the most humid and hot days of the year so far. Fortunately there’s a lot of shade on the Cap Crescent, and I’m sure an extra walk break in mile 6 while two of the four members of our group took a bathroom detour might not have hurt matters. But still, I didn’t feel like I’d been run over by a truck at any point, and that was a huge relief. Things are finally starting to feel like they’re getting back to normal. And oh, the siren call of getting an Arnold Palmer afterwards (green tea and lemonade, please) made it all worth it.

(10:12, 9:34, 9:53, 10:16, 9:34, 11:06, 9:36, 8:41)

Start time: 12/12/09, 7:30am
Location: 14th St., National Mall, Rock Creek Park
Distance: 20.6 miles
Average pace: 10:45min/mile
Total Miles For December: 51 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 829 miles

Start time: 12/13/09, 3:30pm
Location: Thomas Circle Gym
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 9:46min/mile
Total Miles For December: 56 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 834 miles

The original plan was to run a mini-Goofy this weekend with Charlie and Ryan; 10mi on Saturday, 20mi on Sunday. Only problem was, Sunday had a very strong prediction for lots of rain and perhaps a “wintery mix.” So, instead we ran 20 miles together on Saturday. The run wasn’t bad; lots and lots of Rock Creek Park, further than I’d ever run up it before. Ryan was definitely running out of energy on the way back (I suspect he didn’t have enough food) so we slowed down a bit so that we could finish it all up together. (No splits, my GPS went totally berserk and started losing signal while running down the center of Beach Drive in Rock Creek park. Not a tree or cloud to be blocking signal. And then it lost signal the whole way back up 14th Street at the end. It ended up losing almost an entire mile. Yeesh.)

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3364061

Unfortunately, the rest of Saturday and a lot of Sunday involved a lot of family stuff; I ended up getting no rest and not much sleep that night. With a really inadequate recovery, I ended up just running leisurely 5 miles on a treadmill at Charlie’s gym and called it good enough.

Start time: 8/13/09, 8:15am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 4 miles
Average pace: 8:23min/mile
Total Miles For August: 45 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 504 miles

Ah, the best-laid-plans and all that. I originally had this week’s exercise all mapped out:

Mon: 4-5 mile run (morning), lap swimming class (evening)
Tue: spinning class
Wed: 4-5 mile run
Thu: rest
Fri: 7 mile run
Sat: 14 mile run

Instead, I came down with what is either allergy problems or a nasty cold starting on Saturday; the jury is still out on which it was. All I know for certain is that it knocked me for a loop through the end of Monday, but even Tuesday and Wednesday still had lingering effects. So, I ended up taking those days off. Under the circumstances, my 7/14 run for Friday and Saturday seemed like a pretty bad idea. So instead I just went for a four-mile run today, and then I’ll run some on Saturday. As it was, today’s run definitely was tough towards the end; in the last mile I ended up taking a minute walk-break because I was feeling majorly beat, but even with that it’s not a bad pace at all considering how badly I was feeling earlier this week.

On the bright side, I could really feel the difference with the new shoes this morning. And since the last pair was retired at the 500-mark for the year, it’ll be easy to track how many miles this new pair has!

Start time: 3/24/09, 5:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:26min/mile
Total Miles For March: 60 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 177 miles

After taking Monday morning off from the gym (and its usual rowing and elliptical fun), it’s back to the grind. I’d wanted to push my mid-week runs up to 6 miles this week but we’ll see how that goes; so often (like this run) it just doesn’t happen thanks to other time constraints. Still, it was a nice 5-miler; uphill for the first two, then back down for the next two and a flat final mile. I know I run on the W&OD a lot, but one thing I do like is the general lack of roads to cross. I did have one intersection to get through here, but between marks 2 and 5 there are no crossings at all—which means no continual starting and stopping. That’s something I get if I run in my neighborhood (plus car exhaust!) and it can get a little old.

More importantly, my new shoes arrived right after the half marathon. It felt soooo good to retire the old ones.

(8:42, 8:50, 8:19, 8:10, 8:12)

Start Time: 7/29/08, 7:00am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 2 miles & 4 miles
Average Pace: 10:02min/mile & 8:08min/mile
Total Miles For July: 74.5 miles

Uuuuggghhh. Today’s run was a small “make-or-break” run (2x2miles, plus warm-up and cool-down miles) and thank god it wasn’t more or I would be a smear on the pavement. The official air quality is orange, and “unhealthy for sensitive groups”. Um, yeah, I would agree. My throat actually hurts a little bit now. I think I am going to leave the car at work (I don’t need it for anything tonight) and take the bus home so I can at least feel a little better about not pumping more nastiness into the air.

Anyway, I ran this on the Arlington Boulevard Trail, which of course means that the first mile has a gradual uphill and the second mile reverses it. I was happy with my first 2-mile set, not quite as thrilled with the second but honestly I was glad to have survived without any asthma-esque problems. I did feel fat and slow as I lumbered through the second set, which really means that I was overheated and running out of gas. I must have looked like a right mess by the end, my shirt clinging to me with sweat. *shudder* And I am amused that both times the second mile was 20 seconds faster than the first.

warm-up: 9:34
2-mile sets: (8:08, 7:48) & (8:28, 8:08)
cool-down: 10:30