12 miles @ ~11.7 min/mi & 1+ @ ~10 min/mi
A deer on the Beltway almost turns into a venison nightmare for CM Manlandro on her way to meet me for our run. En route to Boundary Bridge I spy a deer grazing on the bushes beside Beach Dr. The headlights behind me are CM's car. We gird our loins with bottle/packs, take a Succeed! electrolyte capsule, and set off at 5am, CM wielding my flashlight like a saber.
This morning's dozen miles are a recovery run for CM: she needs to recover her mojo after the stress of her final miles at the Riley's Rumble half marathon a fortnight ago. Beach Drive is pleasant under the stars, and within an hour dawn begins to break. The humidity is low and we make excellent time. Judging by my memory of the faded Point-to-Point markers our outbound pace is about 12 min/mi. A handful of cars take advantage of the road until segments of it close at 7am.
A little lost deer dances along the path ahead of us as we reach the National Zoo. Its mother stands on the opposite side of the high fence; neither is clever enough to find the gate 50m up the road. CM and I touch the stone at the edge of the big tunnel at mile 6.1 and turn back. A couple of miles upstream, trouble: I reach back to my fanny pack and discover that my cellphone is missing! Where could it have fallen out? It's in a used blue newspaper bag to protect it from my sweat. We scan the ground for it as we trot back to our cars.
Our pace for the upstream trip is sub-12 min/mi for the first three miles and an amazing sub-11 min/mi for the final three. I shake CM's hand and award her a red-white-and-blue ribbon, litter that I picked up at the side of the road near mile 11. Looks like CM has found her mojo again! Meanwhile, my cellphone is still Missing In Action. At my request CM rings it up and we listen around the parking lot, but hear nothing.
So into DC I drive, taking neighborhood streets and then Beach Dr below the weekend closure point. No phone seen. I park at the Zoo and jog a quarter mile back to our tunnel turnaround. Still nothing. A pair of attractive young ladies pass me going northward and I follow at their brisk pace. (Hmmmm!) Half a mile later, near the Porter/Klingle Rd bridges, what do I see but my phone lying trailside in its bright blue plastic bag. I leave the girls to proceed onward and run back to my car, arriving in time to avoid paying the $10 zoo parking fee. My lucky day! I remember a fragment of a poem from Frank Herbert's Dune:
We pray to a moon: she is round –
Luck with us will then abound,
What we seek for shall be found
In the land of solid ground.
^z - 2008-08-22
(correlates: BuSab, TheMysterians, 2008-07-27 - Catoctin Preview, ...)