~12 miles @ ~9.9 min/mi

Cara Marie Manlandro is back from Florida — visiting grandma, surfing, eating Italian home cooking — and today she joins me in suffering. An early morning call from her thesis advisor, with a priority request to write part of a research paper with him, preempts our plan to do a loop near the University of Maryland. Instead, after she gets most of a first draft knocked out between 4:30 and 7am, we set off from CM's home to do the Carl Henn Millennium Trail. This is the first time either of us has tried the Millennium Trail counter-clockwise.

CM reports that she had a "religious experience", swimming hard with a team at her high school in Ft Lauderdale. Given her invocations of the Deity during our run, perhaps she has another one today? Her breathing is rough for the first few miles. Then I start to get tired quads. Both of us have intermittent side stitches. I suspect I'm dehydrated. My weight is up a few pounds, into the upper-140s. (CM managed to escape her family visit without gaining.) Neither of us ate a proper breakfast. The glare of the sun in my eyes almost makes me run into a cyclist and a walker. CM with her stylish shades on, warns me just in time.

But the day is pleasant, temperature ~50ºF, with dampness from early morning showers that passed by. Our last three miles are the fastest of the day, and the toughest on us both. As we finish our cool down walk we see CM's husband George in front of their home. CM leans on him to stretch out her tight calf muscle. I groan as I bend over to pick up the two tall lattes that he set down on their front steps. "This is my cross training!" I tell him as I hand him the cups.

Splits by my GPS: 9:52 + 10:10 + 9:48 + 9:36 + 10:21 + 9:46 + 10:33 + 9:28 + 10:11 + 9:20 + 9:22 + 9:25. CM pauses her GPS at major road crossings where we have to wait. I pause at Taco Bell on the way home. It opened at 10am; I'm the only customer there.

(cf. GPS trackfile, 2011-08-17 - Rockville Millennium Trail, 2011-12-26 - Rockville Millennium Trail Loop, ...) - ^z - 2012-01-10