~14.5 miles @ ~12 min/mi

"Bike back!" both Gayatri Datta and I say when we first see one another. Bicycles are pursuing each of us as we converge on the Capital Crescent Trail near the big downtown Bethesda construction site. I arrive a few minutes early, five miles from home via hilly Leland St, with pauses to take photos of flowers and observe rabbits in front yards. Within two miles the sweat-soaked shirt has come off. This morning's ramble is exhausting, and according to the digital scale I drop 5 lbs. in the course of it, in spite of drinking multiple bottles of water and taking S! electrolyte caps and an energy gel.

Gayatri and I run another out-and-back mile on the CCT and then meet Barry Smith. He leads us east on the CCT and through Elm St Park back again to Leland. At Rock Creek we turn upstream, pause at Meadowbrook Stables for restroom visits, and then stop again to visit with Sonya and her cute son in the racing stroller, covered with netting to keep the bugs out. Barry insists on doing a Mormon Temple hill climb up Stoneybrook St, and Gayatri and I acquiesce. On the way home I pause to take more photos of statues, posing with one of a satyr and his lover.

Runkeeper awards me a bonus ~0.2 miles relative to the Garmin GPS when we emerge from the Wisconsin Av tunnel and it reacquires the satellites. Splits by iPhone are 10:26 + 9:26 + 11:40 (photo break) + 10:00 + 9:18 (sprinting fast down the CCT) + 11:40 + 9:53 (GPS glitch) + 11:35 + 12:37 + 19:47 (Meadowbrook Stable break) + 11:20 + 12:53 + 13:31 + 12:33 and a final fraction at 10:48 min/mi pace.

^z - 2013-07-21