~17 miles @ ~11.6 min/mi

"Wimpage!" — the word of the day, coined by Cara Marie Manlandro to describe how she (and I) feel after a few too many miles with the MCRRC First Time Marathoners. At 6:30am I leave home and head upstream along Rock Creek Trail to meet CM and her FTM pace group. They're doing an 18 mile point-to-point long run starting at the Grosvenor Metro station. Storms move through the region; intermittent rain pours down . A bit past Connecticut Av the faster FTM groups appear. "Runner up!" one leader announces. "Where?" I reply, amusing the approaching pack again as I did during the 2011-07-16 - Mad Dog Zimmarathon 2011. Then CM's posse materializes, running on the road. I reverse course and tag along. It's a soggy morning, temperatures in the lower 70s and dew point only a few degrees below that.

"There's cold beer in the 'fridge at home — I'm tempted to drop out now!" I announce as we pass within a mile or two of home. At the back of the pack Yuexia Li chats with me; she's a biochemistry Ph.D., working at the FDA, suffering this season from foot woes. CM is working on her thesis in a closely-related field. As we tire we take more walk breaks. I press S! e-caps on CM to treat cramps, which are probably associated with sodium or potassium loss. At the Washington Monument we cut our run short, CM's mile 17 (my 17.25). On the trek north past the White House CM buys me a pretzel at a street vendor's cart — "The best pretzel I've eaten in this life!" she swears. We await the train at McPherson Square and text CM's husband with news of our progress. At Metro Center we head our opposite ways homeward.

(cf. GPS trackfile, ...) - ^z - 2011-08-26