Start time: 6/21/03, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: running
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1
Average pace: 14:00min/mile

Woohoo! What a great week this was. I got some donations from the following fabulous people: lioncub (who even as I type this is participating in the Tour de Friends bike ride from North Carolina to Washington DC to raise money for people with AIDS!), West and Jim Flanagan, and Monica and Jim McGrath. All heroes!

Then, I actually got off my butt and ran both of my maintenance runs during the week (instead of just one of them like I’ve been doing as of late). On Tuesday this meant running through the rain, while on Thursday it was outrunning a storm front that was rolling in (hey, at least there were nice cool breezes!), but the miles were under my belt and I was ready for Saturday.

Saturday morning started without a cloud in the sky, but still nice and cool; a couple pace group members were actually shivering! It’s great running weather, though, and after last week’s really hot temperatures this was a real relief. The majority of our run actually went without incident, unless you count me stepping off the trail and twisting my ankle around Mile 4 to be an incident. I shouted “Ouch!” or perhaps a less-pleasant word, but everything seemed to be fine so we pushed on.

Ultimately, though, it was a world of difference from last week. Everyone felt strong, we kept hitting the times we should have, and while we sort of split into two groups for the last mile or so (sometimes it just happens, there was about 100 feet distance between the groups so it wasn’t that far) we all finished really strong. In short, a near-perfect run.

Why couldn’t they all be this easy?