~8 miles @ ~14 min/mi

Caren Jew shakes her fist at me as she arrives, a few minutes after I do, at the MD-355 parking lot. It's all part of our game, to get to a run early. In my defense: I phoned to let her know I was about to leave home, and I underestimated my travel time. Sorry Ms. C!

Just before 7am we set off upstream along the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail. My hands are clad in Caren's spare socks, since I forgot my gloves at home. A rising sun glints through the trees, reflecting off diamond-dust frost sprinkles on wooden bridges. Vultures cruise low, a woodpecker machine-gun rattles, and robins hop off the trail to let us pass. At Caren's insistence we climb the long Watkins Mill Rd hill and tag the pole at the top.

Other runners meet us on the trail. We strive to avoid taking walk breaks when they're within line-of-sight. Back at the start it's still a few minutes short of Caren's time goal (1:45) so we trot along Route 355 southward for a few blocks and climb the hill past Game Preserve Rd to near the 7-11. Caren stops her watch but kindly runs back with me to the parking lot to let my GPS click past 8.00 miles and our average pace, including all breaks, drop below 14:00 min/mi.

(cf. trackfile [1]) - ^z - 2011-04-14