Good morning, my friends! I hope you all had nice weekends. Matt and I ended up staying in DC over the weekend after all and postponing our NC visit for a couple weeks. We were held up on Friday with work and such and Matt also had a cold, so we didn’t want to go and get our nephew sick!
I was bummed we weren’t going but it was good to be here and get some work done in the end. On Saturday, I spent most of the day doing prep work for the Basic Nutrition course I’m teaching at GW (starting tomorrow!).
On Sunday, I got in a nice long run for LA marathon training with my friend Sarah.
I had around 13 or 14 miles on the docket, and Sarah said she’d be down to do about 8 of them with me, so I figured I would run to/from her to add on the extra distance.
As such, I started solo with a run down to the Lincoln Memorial to meet Sarah.
It was lovely weather here on Sunday – a welcome change from the extremely cold, dreary days last week!
Made it!
Good morning, Mr. Lincoln.
I found Sarah, and the two of us set off together down the reflecting pool, which was partially frozen! (The people out on it were doing some sort of official cleaning.)
We ran all the way down the National Mall to the Capitol, then back the other way.
And over to my favorite, the tidal basin, where we did a big loop.
From there, we ran back over to the mall and then up 21st street until we hit P street, where I said farewell to Sarah and forged on on my own.
I ran west along P street, over the bridge towards Georgetown. By this point, my watch said around 10 miles.
It was hard to end a run by myself – you guys know I’m a really social runner and I get bored/discouraged easily if I’m out there alone, especially if I’m already pretty tired, like I was yesterday.
The pretty views in Georgetown helped…
… but I was already thinking about how my last mile would be the mile long hill of death from Rosslyn back up to Courthouse/Clarendon. UGH! I was considering walking up it, feeling rather defeated and exhausted even thinking about it, when I heard a text message come through on my phone in my water pack. At a light, I stopped to look at it, and saw it was my college friend Tom (remember him?) sharing that he had just Boston Qualified at the Disney Marathon yesterday – his goal! (amazing!!!)
“Wow,” I thought. “If Tom can BQ, I can certainly finish out my run strong…!” So that served as my motivation to finish the damn thing out and not give up. Perfect timing!
I ran over the Key Bridge (look at that ice!)…
And then got ready to conquer the massive hill. I made a deal with myself: run as slow as I wanted, but no walking. I could do this.
And I did. 🙂 13.1 miles (couldn’t just do 13 even, obviously), done.
Whew! That was a HARD one. I was so spent by the end, but proud I didn’t give up.
Splits:
- Mile 1: 8:54
- Mile 2: 8:34
- Mile 3: 9:00
- Mile 4: 8:47
- Mile 5: 8:53
- Mile 6: 9:17
- Mile 7: 9:07
- Mile 8: 9:15
- Mile 9: 9:09
- Mile 10: 9:08
- Mile 11: 9:00
- Mile 12: 8:59
- Mile 13: 9:47 (hill of deathhhhhhhhh)
- 0.1 nubbin pace: 8:33
Total distance: 13.1 miles. Total time: 1:58:50. Average pace: 9:04.
I think next time, I might be smarter and run far enough before I meet up with my buddy of the day that I don’t have to finish a long run alone… 😉
How was your weekend? Anyone else get in a good run or race? I spent the rest of yesterday doing some errands, and it was so nice out Matt had the fun idea to go to the driving range for a couple hours, too! I’m terrible at golf but it was a blast. 🙂
