Racing the Sun

0, 05mi

Start Time: 3/10/08, 6:50pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:51min/mile
Total Miles For March: 18 miles

The idea was to get out to the W&OD Trail by 6pm, after work, and take advantage of the only good part of Daylight Saving Time—have enough time to get in a 5-to-6 mile run before it got dark. Instead I was stuck at work, and by the time I got out, getting in even a 5-miler was starting to get questionable. Fortunately I was able to finish up right as the sky began to get a dark purple, so that was good, at least.

Not so good was the amount of huffing and puffing. Sure, the first half was downhill while the second half was uphill, but those splits (8:15, 8:27, 8:54, 9:16, 9:22) were not good. I have got to shed those pounds of fat that are still around my belly. It’s not the number on the scale, it’s the composition of the body that’s bugging me as of late. So we’ll see.

Back on track

0, 10mi

Start Time: 3/6/08, 8:00am
Location: Court House, Clarendon, Ballston, W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Average Pace: 9:33min/mile
Total Miles For March: 13 miles

Ok! Back on the wagon, Greg—both for running and for updating. (I just put a whole bunch of backdated entries from the past month and a half on here. Eek.) Anyway, I ran a 10 miler today; with the National Half Marathon for me on the 29th, it was rapidly approaching do-or-die time. So it was a slowish for me run, and I felt a little bit creaky, but so long as I can get running again all will be quite good. Right? Hopefully?

Hell of a lot of hills though. Especially once you get west of Ballston. Upppp and dowwwnnn and upppp and downnnnn… bleah!

(Supposedly it was a 9:33min/mile. But the GPS also said that my ninth mile was a 10:54, and to be honest I find this hard to believe. So on the bright side, a little faster. Not much, but a little.)

“28 Minutes of Hell”

0, 03mi, explosive, hell, meter repeats

Start Time: 3/1/08, 8:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & ~2 miles
Total Miles For March: 3

Fred named this one afterwards “28 minutes of hell” and I must admit that I think it’s a pretty accurate description. The idea was as follows:

Run 2 minutes (fast)
Recover 2 minutes
Run 1 minute (faster)
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds (still faster)
Recover 30 seconds

Only you do it four times. Uggghhhh. On the bright side you can do this anywhere because it doesn’t require a track to mark off distance. But it was a pretty kick-butt workout, at the end I felt like I was going to drop.

Backdated Backwards Ladder

0, 03mi, explosive, meter repeats

Start Time: 2/24/08, 8:30am
Location: Sidwell Friends High School
Distance: 1 mile & 1600m & 800m & 400m & 200m & 100m
Total Miles For February: 32

Fred had us run a “reverse ladder” where each distance was faster and faster. Uggghhhh. It was a little gratifying that four of the five of them had me finishing first, although that last one I was trying to just not throw up!

1600m: 5:59
800m: 2:46
400m: 1:09
200m: 29.92
100m: 15.64

Backdated Florida thrillsville

0, 07mi, travel

Start Time: 2/9/08, 2:00pm
Location: Yulee, Florida
Distance: 7 miles
Average Pace: 8:50min/mile
Total Miles For February: 15

Running through my parents’s neighborhood—which was quite nice—and then the next neighborhood over… which was not quite nice. In fact, rather terrifying. And lots of snarling dogs. Eeeeek.