15+ miles @ 12+ min/mi

Early on I see one baby bunny rabbit every mile, frozen at my approach, but their numbers decline as the morning progresses. At 5:35am I set out from home, via Linden Lane and the Forest Glen Seminary, for Rock Creek Trail where C-C and Ken plan to head southwards from Ken-Gar at 6:30. It's already warm and humid, and when I meet them at the 1 hour mark I've already gone through a whole bottle of Gatorade and have begun sipping the "Dr. Zap" ZelectrolyteFormula that I carry. We proceed back downstream — past a deer, some adult rabbits, and a possum playing dead quite convincingly — to the DC line, at close to or just under 12:00 min/mi pace. A robin's egg lies broken on the trail. I'm carrying some 10x concentrate of my personal sports drink, and it reconstitutes well in a bottle with water from the fountain along the trail. I get quite tired after 2 hours and take increasingly long walk breaks. Back at RCT mile 2.3 I leave Ken & C-C to branch home again. Climbing the hill into Walter Reed Annex I hear a swish-swish sound, which I soon identify as the legs of my totally sweat-soaked shorts brushing past one another; my shirt is saturated now too. The long-promised torrential rains never materialize, alas.