Landmark run

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Originally uploaded by yumkerun.

Feeling smarter after yesterday's midafternoon run in the heat, I was out there by 8 a.m. with 19 degree weather and cloud cover: perfect running weather.

I'm liking my runs in DC. They bring me past the national buildings... Take this route: Start at the FBI building and beside the Ford Theatre, run to the Mall, hitting Penn Ave., which has slight-lines of the White House to Capitol Hill. Across the Mall, up the National Monument to Lincoln Memorial, then up to Arlington cemetery, then, weirdly enough, right to the edge of National Airport, where a plane takes off overhead every few minutes. Then across the bridge to the Jefferson Memorial, etc..

As a Canadian, I do understand the significance of all these landmarks... But still, i'm not from here, so I don't really connect emotionally. Then again, locals use the mall to play soccer, frisbee or touch football. I guess these landmarks just fade into the scenery...

19K in 1:41

Need for speed

Lately, I've been pushing the pace just a bit more so I can prepare for the real race feeling. The weather has a lot to do with it and it also feels good to run fast. Speaking of which, R. ran a race in DC and did a 5K in an amazing 26 minutes and change. That's fast! I've always told her she could be a speedy one.

I did a 7K run on a mostly flat trail after work. Here are the splits

1K: 4:35 (yeah! running is fun! I wish all my (runs started like this)
2K: 4:31 (cruising)
3K 4:30 (pushing it)
4K: 5:11 (cool down at turnaround)
5K: 4:55 (um, still, er, cooling down)
6K 4:30 (back on for a kilometre)
Last 800 metres: 4:45/K pace (easing up a bit)

Anyways a 5K in 23:44 in non-race conditions makes me pretty happy.

Consistency

I will stop talking about how hard it is to get myself out there on the streets for runs until I start getting consistent. Well, the last three days have been good, and if I run during the weekend, it'll be my first five-day stretch of running in a long time.

Fit in a 10K yesterday morning which I ran in about 51 minutes for average of 5:05Ks. I started tonight's run on a fullish stomach, so I started off easy, then at the 5K mark, I realized that if I stepped it up in the last kilometre, I'd hit 6K in less than 30 minutes. With a 4:04 final kilometre, I hit the mark in 29:18.