~14 miles @ ~11.7 min/mi

At 5:15am on the way to meet comrade Gayatri Datta the glows of neon signs catch my eye. They're in the front window of Patty's Place, a "Latin Grill" in the industrial park that I trot by en route to the Capital Crescent Trail. Only the right half is powered up. It proclaims, in brilliant color:

At 6am Gayatri and I take über-hilly Leland St back to Rock Creek Trail and then pause at Meadowbrook Stables, where horses await their morning feeding. Several of them appear to need haircuts. Or perhaps they're sporting toupees?

From Meadowbrook Stables we continue upstream along RCT to Stoneybrook Dr, the long Mormon Temple hill. I get a bit ahead of Gayatri during the uphill segment and divert to take a photo from the visitor's center parking lot where there's a view of the north side of the Temple that I have never seen before. At the top of one spire angel Moroni points his trumpet toward the sunrise.

Gayatri and I continue the climb together, then circle back via Kent and Old Spring Rd to the water fountain, and then return along RCT to the side trail at Suzanna Ln. Gayatri heads back to Bethesda here and I turn toward home. Sweat-soaked shirt friction on my nipples makes for a bloody chromatography experiment — Ouch! — but the chafing is tolerable, as is the twinge when in the shower afterwards warm water washes more salt into the wounds. (How do you say "That's running!" in French? Surely not "C'est courant!"?) |

The Garmin GPS trackfile says mile splits are 11:34 + 10:14 + 10:46 + 10:43 + 16:53 + 11:44 + 10:57 + 14:45 + 11:32 + 10:31 + 11:17 + 11:00 + 10:48 + 10:13 plus a final fragment. The Runens app on the iPhone is stingier, only crediting the course with 13.9 miles. During photo and potty pauses the clock keeps ticking ...

^z - 2012-06-10