13+ miles @ ~10.7 min/mi

A great blue heron launches itself into flight and glides along Sligo Creek near Riggs Rd. It's the same area where a pair of young herons perched half a dozen years ago during my 2005-06-05 - Dry Wet Ramble.

Cara Marie Manlandro and I are doing a big loop this morning before storms move in. Starting at Candy Cane City we follow Rock Creek Trail upstream to East-West Hwy, which leads us through downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park. We pass near family friend Nina's home. That leads me to tell the story of her old violin, which some years ago she asked Paulette and me to keep under our bed for safety while she was away. I later discover that the violin was worth more than our entire house. (Lucky that our rickety bed didn't collapse and crush it!)

CM and I do mental math and compute that the Body Mass Index for each of us is virtually identical; we concur that dropping a few pounds could improve our speed. As Riggs Rd turns into Missouri Av I start to develop chafing, which leads to trail tales of unmentionable irritation. Traffic scares us on Military Rd as we enter Rock Creek Park, until we scramble down a steep slope and reach the safety of Beach Dr. We accelerate in the final miles to pull our average pace down to a nice round number.

Perfect timing: we tag CM's car and climb inside just as heavy rain begins to fall. Another fun run, as usual with CM just a little too fast for comfort.

(See trackfile at [1]) - ^z - 2011-04-25