~5 miles @ ~10.5 min/mi

With almost an hour before time to pick up kids at the University of Maryland I leave the car at the Adelphi Manor Park cricket pitch and trot without walk breaks upstream from Milepost 4.5 of Northwest Branch Trail. A couple of kids are spooning discreetly in a gazebo by the creek; smoke from a family barbecue drifts through the valley. At the end of the paved pathway I take the steep gravel service road up to Oakview Dr and manage to run all the way, though my stride is short enough that I might have made faster progress walking. The downhill return jog is a bit scary in the deepening dusk but I make it down to the stream without falling and accelerate then back to the park, proud of myself for punching out a sub-9-minute final mile.

(correlates: 2007-11-28 - Northwest Branch Tempo Run and Hill Work, 2008-09-11 - NWB Hill Work, BeatingExpectations, ...)