It had rained overnight, so the pavement was wet, and humidity was thick, and temperatures were cool. Lindsey and I started the Capital Crescent Trail from the opposite end–at Georgetown at the river banks of the Potomac. I thought it would be better to run slightly uphill the first half, then coast a bit on the second. It didn’t seem to matter, though. It was still a hard run.
I thought this would be an easy run, but I had my challenges. Since I had a bit of PowerAde Zero left in my bottle, I took it with me, thinking I’d throw out the bottle at the next trash can. I finally threw it out–6.5 miles later! I had to carry that thing almost to the end of the trail before turning around. After I turned around, I started getting abdominal pains. Usually I can run them off, but these were getting worse. I had to walk a couple times in the 8th mile to walk off the pains. But they didn’t last long after that, so I finished mostly running the whole 15 miles.
I really enjoyed having my Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS Watch with me. This is the first time I’ve used it on this trail, so I was eager to see what the trail elevation was on both sides of the trail. It also helped me on the last mile, since the trail runs out of mile markers and we end up running on Water Street near the Potomac in Georgetown.
At the end of the run, I noticed Lindsey not too far ahead of me. She usually whips me in time pretty bad, so I didn’t know what happened when I saw her. She had a rough run, walking quite a bit, and even taking a bathroom break. I’ll link to her blog if she writes one about today (UPDATE: Here’s her link). I was in a lot of pain, and from the waist down I felt pretty numb. While stretching afterward near our parked car, a lady in a minivan stopped, rolled down her window and asked “How’d you do?!” We told her we just ran 15, and she gave us a huge thumbs up! Then she told us her son was out there running for the first time.
I drank a quart of PowerAde Zero on the way home, but I felt very sick. My lips were purple and my fingers were cold. I guess my circulation wasn’t quite on. And my feet really hurt, which is a first! The shower felt great at home, and I’ve been eating Chicken Noodle Soup to help warm me up. Nice comfort food. I checked the elevation stats from my watch after it synced up at home, and it looks like running from Georgetown to Bethesda on this trail is a gradual 370 feet uphill
You can interact with the map and see results on my Garmin Connect page here. The watch also kept track of calories burned, based on my weight, distance, and pace. It says I burned 2,646 calories! That seems very high, but breaking that down over a 3-hour period, that means 882 calories an hour, which sounds a tad more realistic.
Week 8 of Las Vegas Marathon training wrapped up! 30 miles this week!
Summary:
Location: Capital Crescent Trail, Bethesda, MD to Georgetown in Washington, DC
Conditions: Overcast, 66-70
Goal: 15 miles
Results: 15 miles
Time: 3:05:57
Pace: 12:23/mile
Total Training Miles to Date: 183
Click here to view my complete training schedule
Thoughts:
Same ole story here: I have to watch what I eat! I’ve been doing good with the carbing up on the night before, but it’s the rest of the week I need to be conscious of what I’m taking in. I’m not losing any weight again.
What I’ll remember most:
The lady stopping and asking us how we did, and gave us that big thumbs up. Runners always look out for each other.
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