longest run to date

9 miles, along a pretty little trolley-to-trails route:

sunshiney trail

in some gorgeous freaking weather that I dressed all wrong for. oh well. at least I got out there, before stuffing my face with Superbowl Sunday food om nom nom.

idyllic. seriously, who doesn't want to run here!?!

I ran to my latest downloads of DDR songs, my other obsession of late (I'm pretty terrible at it but have made noticeable progress, plus two of my housemates are good enough to carry me). I thought I'd have to cycle through the songs (they're each pretty short, ~1.5mins), but my mp3 player froze for a decent portion of the run, boo. it's been acting up in the cold, might almost be time for a new one. I trudged (ran, jogged, wc) solidly through with the exception of photo-breaks, stopping to gingerly walk across the few supericy spots still on the trail, oh and gawking at this adorable little plane:

so cute. and look, see the leftover spots of snow.

oh, can someone please explain this phenomenon to me?? I feels like it's an east-coast, maybe just Maryland, thing -- I saw the same thing around Druid Lake in Baltimore.

exercise-playground equipment? wtf?

the final two miles, both hips were really burning - usually only the right one acts up. hopefully just a hamstring-stretching issue...?

tip

little tip: don't cry while running. makes it really hard to breathe. :/

I actually don't usually think about much while running, really zone out. I hear about people who have the deep thoughts and I'm always tempted to try and use that time for...something useful. but the zoning out has its own uses, fortunately.

running with a camera

duck bar

I do occasionally question my sanity. It's clearly too cold out to be running, and in fact big patches of my path were super icy. And yet...there I was.

a run for my inner child

I picked out a local race to do! It's a 10k in 5 weeks, which will probably be really tight in terms of training. But a 5k seems too short to pay real money for.....and this race is just too cute to pass up. It's the Jingle All the Way 10k in downtown DC. And they hand out jingle bells, to be tied onto your shoes, with the race packets. Squee!!

I'm not sure yet whether it'll be annoying to have all that jingling going on around me, but for now I think it'll be fun. I'm also not thrilled with the out-and-back course (hate those), but eh. I find it amusing that I will run right by my first spot for spectating the Marine Corps Marathon... :D Now, to decide whether or not I should wear my santacon costume for the race!

emotion marathon

Yesterday, I cheered on a friend -- and 22,000 strangers -- at the Marine Corps Marathon. It was a really weirdly emotional day for me, and I can't even imagine how emotional it would be for (a) the people actually running the marathon and (b) me to actually run a marathon. I had a few signs, and decided that next time, I should go for funny instead of inspirational. I did 2 inspirational-like ones, and got a few nice comments about them, but I would have rather made people chuckle a bit. Also, would be better to have cloth signs, maybe with collapse-able poles to hold them up; cardboard was really awkward to carry around. Was sad to not have my purple pom-poms with me, I must've left them in Oregon. I did see one girl running with a sign on her back that said "I am my own cheering section" and a pompom attached at her waist, bouncing along on her butt -- I think I might do that for a race sometime. Next time I cheer, I really need to find a friend to cheer with, or just cheer next to other people -- cheering on my own, while tolerable, is kind of pathetic actually. Also also, must have a boombox! and candy to hand out! especially at and beyond mile 20.

Anyway. Watching the marathoners, I decided: it's time. I have to run a marathon, asap. Er, as asap as possible given that I want to be decently trained. Which also means I need some races leading up to my marathon race. Suggestions welcome. ;) I'm going to do the Portland Shamrock 8k again I think, because it's tradition by now -- it'll be my fourth. I'd love love love to run the DC Cherry Blossom 10-miler -- it's entry by lottery only (what!), so while I'll definitely enter in the lotto there's zero guarantee on that one. I'm hoping to talk Kimber into doing the Fort Vancouver 5k next year, so I will probably just be a spectator there and cheer her on. Unless I should run with her...? Her choice. I think I would like to do the marathon before my August wedding...so May/June/July. Unless I could be ready before that??? I'd also like to do a big race -- discussion on today about small vs big races, and from my vast experience (ha!) I do think I like the really big races, it's just fun to see that much humanity all in one place. Also I get to make lots of friends. But the big races are also harder to get into & more expensive generally I think. Hmm. Must research.

As a spectator at the race yesterday, I did get to people-watch to my heart's content. I saw a bunch of couples running together, which was beyond adorable. There were quite a few spectators biking alongside (other side of the road) their runner -- one in particular was very sweet, he hauled ass up the final really steep hill at the very end of the marathon, dodging other spectators and fencing while yelling out encouragement to his sweetie, who was hauling ass up the hill herself. Awesome. Quite a few kids with "Support Crew" t-shirts who would run with their parent for a little ways. This race was nicely laid out such that we could take shortcuts to beat our runner to our next cheering spot. This was my first time as a spectator on a running course -- I usually just cheer for Chris at triathlons. An interesting experience to see the same runners four times -- a few of them recognized me too, even after I put away my signs, which was funny. Turns out, runners keep their pace pretty consistent -- the runners around my friend at mile 12 were around him at mile 14, 20, and 24 too. Triathletes do not stay in a pace group like that...unsurprisingly. ;) People are so amazing, really. I love seeing that.