~5.5 miles @ ~9.5 min/mi

Midweek in downtown Rockville, after dropping daughter Gray off at music practice: time for supermaniac ^z to do a quick-change into running clothes. No phone booth, so the handicapped stall in the public library restroom suffices. Feed the meter to the max, an hour, and set off down the Pike. Today is Construction Day, with backhoes and shovelers and mountains of dirt and orange cones and closed sidewalks. At the corner of Veirs Mill Rd on a whim branch into the cemetery in search of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. After circling through the northern side of the graveyard finally spy their graves, and learn the author's full name, "Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald". The flat slab on the ground above their final resting place bears the final lines of The Great Gatsby:

Then make haste before the parking meter runs out: Veirs Mill eastward to the Millennium Trail, north to Gude Dr, total a bit farther than planned. Pushing hard gets back with 4 minutes to spare on the ticking time bomb. Whew! The GPS trackfile says pace goes 10:16 ⇒ 8:53 ⇒ 9:23 ⇒ 9:26 ⇒ 9:27 ⇒ 9:01 for the final fraction.

^z - 2012-05-15