"Brood X" of the 17-year locust (cicada) population is now emerging in our neighborhood. Every morning the thumb-sized critters creep out of the earth where they've been slumbering, shed their larval husks, climb into the trees, and start buzzing — loudly enough to make it hard to hold a conversation. The enthusiastic cicada males generate a noise like that made by flying saucers in sci-fi movies of the 1940's. They mate and die, or are eaten by birds, dogs, or anything else that has a hankering for them. Big buggy corpses litter the paths along which I've been ambulatory for the past week. Notes on those jogs, from Brian Tresp's running blog at his then-domain "sprintbare.com":
~4 miles @ ~11 min/mi
44 minutes, around my "classic" 4 mile loop, starting at 0530: it's already warm (my shirt is sweat-soaked within 20 minutes) — an old crescent moon stands low in the east, almost on edge — three foot fog floats over the meadows — deer scat and tree florets lie scattered on the pavement — diesel tractor-trailer trucks idle their engines to keep their cabs air-conditioned — there's a whiff of skunk-scent on Rock Creek Trail ...
2004-05-16 - Rock Creek and Sligo Loop
14+ miles @ ~11.5 min/mi
161 minutes: A never-before-attempted circuit, from home to Rock Creek Trail, then 6 miles upstream to Randolph Road, east through Wheaton via Veirs Mill & University, south on Sligo Creek Trail to Forest Glen, and west again to Che^z ... an unanticipated journey, made pleasant by relatively cool weather and good conversation along the way. The emerging "Brood X" of cicadas make an extraterrestrial whirr as I pass by the woods.
I plan to do only half a dozen miles, carrying Paulette's digital camera and taking more photos of trail mileposts — but it starts raining at 8am as I prepare to set out, so I abandon that scheme, grab a water bottle, and just go jogging without a goal. After joining RCT I meet half a dozen packs of MCRRC members on their Sunday morning long run, and am too embarrassed to take most of my early walk breaks while they can see me. Approaching Connecticut Avenue I catch up with Ruth (a young cancer surgeon, in training for her fourth marathon, Vermont in a few weeks) and we chat for the last half hour as she finishes her ~13 miler at Ken-Gar Park ... about speedwork, nutrition (Ruth eats kiwi fruit before her long runs), and in her words, the "privilege that it is to run a marathon" ...
I'm feeling good now, so I carry on rather than turn back for home. In the woods of north Kensington ultrarunner Ron Ely catches up with me and we talk as he finishes his ~20 miler (he's preparing for a hundred mile run soon) ... he was at the 50k HAT Run in late March (and finished ~2.5 hours ahead of me there) ...
After Ron turns back at RCT milepost #8 I'm on my own. The sun comes out so I try to find the shadier side of the street as I climb to Wheaton and cross from the Rock Creek (Potomac) watershed to the Sligo (Anacostia River) drainage basin. A water fountain at Wheaton Forest Park provides a welcome refill (and head-dousing to cool my fevered brow). The return jog down Sligo Creek is uneventful.
At home I reward myself with a breakfast of champions: a bottle of beer and a bowl of instant mashed potatoes ...
5+ miles @ ~11.4 min/mi
evening jog, cicadas whirring, humid but slightly cooler after rain earlier today — Georgetown Branch for ~20 minutes, then in the middle, two measured segments along the MitP route: mile 24-23 in 9:43 feels good, so I accelerate and do mile 23-22 in an amazing-for-me 9:01 ... and then the slices of pizza that I ate for dinner begin to weigh me down and I take it slowly the rest of the way home via Walter Reed Annex ...
11+ miles @ ~12 min/mi
130 minutes in the evening ... perhaps a little too fast for the warmth and humidity, and given yesterday's brisk run — from home along Rock Creek Trail, then via sidewalks (Cedar / Old Georgetown / Arlington / Bethesda) to Georgetown Branch Trail and thence home again ... feel quite tired during the final miles. As the sun sets the sky briefly turns a bright purple-pink ...
2004-05-22 - Paint Branch Buzz
~5 miles @ ~10.2 min/mi
cicadas hum in the trees, sunlight dances on the water, and I swelter — four miles along Paint Branch Trail from the University of Maryland north toward the Beltway + return (mileposts 1.5 - 3.5 - 1.5) with short jogs before & after ... average pace between markers ~10:15 min/mi ... I try to take walk breaks in the shade, speed through UV-exposted areas, and turn back in the zone devastated by the 2001 tornado where there are too few trees left to provide much cover ... am leaving for Texas on Sunday morning with Paulette and Gray to visit family, seek a violin, and maybe watch some minor-league baseball ... back later in the week ...
TopicRunning - TopicPersonalHistory - 2004-05-22
(correlates: SuburbanDeer, DavidCopperfieldAndMissMowcher, BabySteps, ...)