Start time: 12/17/11, 7:30am
Location: Belle Haven Park, National Harbor, Mt. Vernon Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 10:03min/mile
Total Miles For December: 54 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 698 miles
Current Shoes: 239 miles

Phew! Looking back through my running logs, the last time I’ve done 12 or more miles was all the way at the start of August for a 14-miler. (That was the one where my knee started bothering me, so it makes sense that I hadn’t done any of that length since then.) Met Jim, John, Michael, and Steve at Belle Haven Park in Alexandria, and from there we ran over the Wilson Bridge to (and through) National Harbor, then headed back and picked up the 4 on the back end up and down the Mt. Vernon Trail.

My quads were clearly saying, “What is this? Shouldn’t we be done?” around the end. Heh. All in all not bad; there’s one really slow mile in there (#5) where most of the guys stopped for a bathroom break (so John and I just walked until they finished up and ran up to us) but otherwise nothing unreasonable. (Even when we started losing track of how long the walk breaks were for miles 9-12 after Steve stopped a little early; he does a good job of getting us moving again.)

(9:53, 10:04, 9:42, 10:22, 12:47, 9:31, 9:11, 9:31, 9:52, 9:58, 10:28, 9:04)