Up and Down Capitol Hill, Again

0, 06mi, 10k, pr, race, statistics

Capitol Hill Classic 10K
Start time: 5/18/08, 8:30am
Location: Washington DC
Distance: 6.2 miles
Finishing time: 52:30
Average pace: 8:28min/mile
Miles for May: 25.5

I missed the Capitol Hill Classic last year; I had an injury that had prevented me from running anything. So I had a lot to really prove for myself, because this was my first 10K since May 2006.

I made one small mistake this year; I ran into Emma early on and stuck with her until about mile 2.5. As Emma is normally faster than me, it meant I was starting to run out of gas. Fortunately I realized the error of my ways and slowed down a bit. It went well after that, aside from a misplaced Mile 4 marker that made me really wonder what the hell was going on, and running completely out of gas and walking for about 30 seconds up the long, steep, Capitol Hill. UGH. Not proud of that. But otherwise it went well, and I got to see a whole bunch of my old fellow AIDS Marathon staffers—Rick W, Rick C, Karen K, and Emma. Good times, good times, good times.

(8:19, 7:52, 8:14, 10:17, 7:11, 8:55, 1:33 for the .2. And yeah, that marker was definitely off for that fourth mile!)

And hey! Check out my age group placing!

2005: 315/386 (81st percentile) (30-39 group)
2006: 166/233 (71st percentile) (30-34 group)
2008: 98/192 (51st percentile) (35-39 group)

Make or Break?

0, 06mi

Start Time: 5/13/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 2 miles & 4 miles
Average Pace: 9:43min/mile & 7:55min/mile
Total Miles For May: 19.5 miles

Today is what Fred calls a “make or break” run; run a mile warm up, then run two sets of 2 miles at a good clip, then a mile cool down. So, off to the W&OD and its handy mile-markers, plus a lack of crossing any roads once I’m there. I had a good easy warm-up (10:08), then kicked it up a notch for two good miles (8:17, 7:47) for an average of an 8:02. I wasn’t entirely sure how long one should rest, so I decided that normally we walk around the track once and that takes about 4 minutes. Then it was back off again for two more good miles (7:39, 7:55) for a solid 7:47 average. Finally, the cool down on the way back went a little faster than planned (9:18); I just find it hard to slow back down if I still have some energy, even though I keep telling myself that I’m supposed to be taking it easier…

It was a little windy and cool at first, but it turned into a really beautiful run. I’d put this one in the “make” category. And now, for lunch, I undo all the good the run may have done with a trip to Elevation Burger. YUM.

Wetness and Confusing Directions

0, 02mi, meter repeats

Start Time: 5/10/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & 200/400/800/600/400/200m
Total Miles For May: 13.5 miles

I didn’t end up with my Tuesday or Thursday runs this past week; one of my calves was mysteriously tight on Tuesday, which made me scrap any running plans, as well as Wednesday’s spinning class. It actually was feeling about 99% better on Thursday morning, but I decided to not push things and held off there as well.

It was a wet, nasty morning on Saturday, and it honestly took a lot of willpower for me to actually get up and go. Fortunately, the longer we were out there, the less it stopped raining. And as an added bonus, no running up and down the bleachers (for fear of slipping and falling).

We ran meter-repeats again, and the originall schedule was 200/400/600/400/200m. However, after the 400m, Fred told me, Emma, Laura, and Tracy that we were going to run 800m next. What? No 600m? Why was he torturing us so? *sigh* Sometimes it doesn’t pay to go fast.

Except, what Fred apparently REALLY meant was, “You’ll run 800m, but only after you run a 600m, so you won’t be running it next.” Which none of us got from his statement, unfortunately. Oops! Ah well. It went well enough, although all four of us were amused that after the 800m we all were of the opinion that we didn’t feel terribly good.

200m: 0:41
400m: 1:24
800m: 3:13
600m: 2:20
400m: 1:24
200m: 0:37

(No run on Sunday due to monsoon rains. Darn.)

Lessons were learned

0, 04mi, progressive run

Start Time: 5/4/08, 4:00pm
Location: Rock Creek Park
Distance: 3.5 miles & 0.5 miles
Average Pace: 8:31min/mile & 9:08min/mile
Total Miles For May: 11 miles

Another “2-4 mile progressive run” attempt! However, looking back, I did a lot of things wrong. Got up early Sunday morning after a late night, so not enough sleep, coupled with a lot of work at Artomatic before going running. I also had a not-huge breakfast around 10am and then… nothing else before going running at 4pm. Smart. And I went out on a warm, sunny afternoon with the deck stacked against me. That said? It wasn’t bad, but I ran out of steam big time with about half a mile to go. Still, well within the range of the distance it was supposed to be, and after I caught my breath (and walked for a few minutes) I actually jogged in another half mile heading back towards the car.

Here’s the funny thing—when I ran this route last week? Butch drove by and honked. This week? Rick Carter drove by. Who will turn up if I run this again next week? I’m dying to find out.

(8:56, 8:40, 8:10, and (for the half) 4:02; the extra half mile later was 4:34.)

Oh, g’wan…

0, 02mi, meter repeats

Start Time: 5/3/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington & Lee High School
Distance: 2 miles
Total Miles For May: 7 miles

I got to this morning’s workout a tiny bit late and missed a bit of our warm-up, but as it turned out… I made it up later. After the warm-up run (plus some stairs, ugh) it was time for four 400m runs—as always, each faster than the previous. Emma wasn’t there this morning so I ended up taking the lead, which was both good and bad. It feels good to be up in the front, but at the same time with no one to pace off of… well… Here’s how those four went: 1:44, 1:31, 1:28, 1:21.

Yeah, that jump between the first and the second? A bit daunting. But I kept it up, and really went all out on the last one. So that’s when Fred casually said, “So, who wants to run an extra one?”

Huh? Really? Then someone said they would… and the next thing I knew, six of us had lined up for a last one. And the end result? 1:20. Phew! The difference of a second could have just been clumsy fingers, but hey, I’m taking it as a victory.

Back to Pacers!

0, 05mi, custis, pacers arlington, tempo

Start Time: 5/1/08, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon & Custis Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:35min/mile
Total Miles For May: 5 miles

I haven’t run with Pacers in literally a year. So what better time to go back? Katie and Blair wanted to try the Pacers group, and like I said, it had been a while. So we headed on over, and it was a lot of fun. I ran with a woman named Kelsey, and we chatted a great deal for the first half of the 5.4 mile course. (Have I mentioned that for my mile counts this year I’m rounding down to the nearest half-mile? So that’s why it says 5 miles up there.) Of course, the second half is uphill and… ooooooooof. We were both feeling it. We definitely passed a bunch of people on the way back, though, so we weren’t the only ones who were feeling it.

My GPS glitched a bit and claimed that the course was 5.6 miles, so I don’t have quite accurate splits. But here’s what it claimed: 7:30, 7:47, 8:08, 9:01, 8:21, and 5:34 for the last bit. (I’m guessing/hoping mile 4 is the one that had the extra .2 miles. But that was the uphill portion in full blast, so who knows?)

Mile Repeats (or, Oops)

0, 05mi

Start Time: 4/29/08, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 3 miles & 2 miles
Average Pace: 7:31min/mile & 9:28min/mile
Total Miles For April: 26 miles

After a late start in the morning (I’d planned to start running about an hour earlier!) my plan was to run the mile repeats workout; run 3 miles, each at around 85% effort, with “full recovery” between each one. But how long should I recover after each mile? I puzzled on that one as I ran my warm-up (9:09). I finally figured I’d play it by ear, and set off for the first mile… which was done in 7:09, aka faster than the mile I ran on Saturday. Oops! A bit too fast. Now to be fair, there is a slight downhill grade for this stretch of the trail, but still.

After 3 minutes of slowly walking around, I started heading back and quickly realized two mistakes. First, I should’ve rested a tiny bit more, I was feeling winded really quickly. And second, if the previous leg was slightly downhill, this stretch was slightly uphill. I figured I would be at least a minute slower, and I was only off on that guess by a few seconds (8:04). This time, I waited about 5 minutes before finally heading off on the last mile, which was much more reasonable (7:21). Then a low cool-down run home (9:47) and I was all done for the day. Since I knew I wouldn’t be running on Wednesday, a good wrap for the month of April.

Brisk and Gray

0, 04mi, progressive run

Start Time: 4/27/08, 3:00pm
Location: Rock Creek Park
Distance: 4 miles
Average Pace: 8:24min/mile
Total Miles For April: 21 miles

My new training schedule has runs for the weekend day we don’t have actual training, so today’s entry on the schedule stated “2-4 mile progressive run” (which is what I attempted on Tuesday). I’d run some errands up in Woodley Park earlier and on the drive home down Rock Creek Parkway, noticed that a lot of the construction appears to be done on the trail—and decided that it would be a nice place for today’s run. So I went home, changed, hopped back in the car and parked right after Pegasus Bridge, before walking down to the Kennedy Center and starting my run.

It was a damp, slightly gray day out. Perfect for a run, in other words. I had the Garmin with me to mark off my splits, and before long I’d hit the first mile at 9:18. A much better start to a progressive run than my last attempt! As I continued to jog along, I glanced down at the Garmin and realized… either it was glitching, or I was going way too fast. Uh oh. I slowed down a tiny bit, but the mile was almost over and sure enough, I hit it at 8:19. Time to turn around… and see what happened on my way back. Mile 3 was just a tiny bit faster at an 8:17, and as I pushed up a bunch of hills in that stretch I took it as a victory of sorts. Still, I needed to show a better final mile so I gave a bit of a push… hurrah! 7:40. A great end to the run.

(That said, if I ever again see someone climb up onto the stone railing over the Potomac and do sit-ups, it will be too soon. Some people are very strange. And brave. And nuts. All it would take is a slight lean the long way and you’d fall off and into the river… which isn’t very deep. That would seriously hurt.)

New earlier time, new faster pace

0, 02mi

Start Time: 4/26/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington & Lee High School
Distance: 2.5 miles
Total Miles For April: 17 miles

Due to an elementary school track group that shows up at 8am, we shifted our time back to 7am for Saturdays. That’s fine by me, actually. Get everything done with and have lots of time to spare. After a warm-up mile, we did what last week’s elementary school group had kept us from doing—a timed mile run. Now, I knew that Emma is normally faster than me, and Laura’s right around the same pace. But there were also a lot of new faces and who knows what to expect from them?

Still, I went up into the front of the group and started off for four laps around the track. I actually ended up in the third lane, with two women that I’d never met before pacing along. For something like this, even though there’s an obvious place to count off progress (each lap) in my head I viewed it as eighths; having the number turn over in a minute or less somehow makes it easier to focus. By the time I’d finished the first half lap, the other two women were still very close to me, but I knew in the next curve I could safely shift into the first lane without doing so mere paces in front of them. And when I hit the first lap (1:45) I was clear of everyone else. But of course, things can change, right?

After I finished my second lap (1:58), taking it a little slower as to not burn out (I’d definitely given an extra little push to get clear of the others), I glanced over my shoulder. Emma was in fact about a quarter of a lap behind me. Good to know. I hit the third lap a little faster (1:53) and felt good heading into the final stretch. I was picking up a bit of speed and had a quarter lap to go when I could hear Emma’s feet pounding the pavement in a sprint, making her move to pass me. “Oh no you don’t!” I yelled and hit the gas as well. As we crossed the finish line (1:43)… victory! Emma was maybe just a second behind me at most, but with a 7:19 I’d beaten her. So rare! (I better enjoy that while I can.) Laura was just behind the two of us, looking pretty strong as always.

Afterwards we had four 200-meter runs, with each one supposed to be a little faster than the previous—and with the idea to pick up the pace at the 100m mark. For the first two, it was more or less the same; at the 100m mark, Emma would zoom by me and finish a bit ahead, with me hot on her heels. For the third and fourth, though, I was able to finish first without her overtaking me—and since each one was indeed faster, that felt great. (0:41, 0:40, 0:39, 0:36)

A very good workout, both in terms of running and also a nice ego-boost.

Return to the 28 minutes of hell

0, 05mi, hell

Start Time: 4/24/08, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Total Miles For April: 14.5 miles

Oof! This was a return to Fred’s fabled “28 minutes of hell” workout. I didn’t feel like marking off specific distances to run things like halves or quarters, so instead I picked this workout. After a mile warm-up, it’s as follows:

Run 2 minutes, HARD
Recover 2 minutes (slow jog or fast walk)
Run 1 minute, HARD
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds, HARD
Recover 30 seconds
repeat three more times

The nice thing was even with the slower moving for recovery, I polished off 3 miles in those 28 minutes. Considering only half of it was actually running, a 9:20min average speed means I was definitely trucking. Even the cool-down mile was around that speed.