2010-05-31 - Sue and Connie's Run

4 miles @ ~7.8 min/mi

"Dog up!" warns a woman behind me about 0.8 miles into the race. "Leash please?" she asks the irresponsible owner as we pass by her a moment later. "Sorry I had to say that," the runner apologizes as she overtakes me, "but runners could get hurt. So could that dog!"

"You're right," I pant. "Thank you!" As usual a warm and humid Memorial Day brings a Sue & Connie's Run, the MCRRC 4 miler in memory of Sue Wen Stottmeister, Connie Barton, and others who have passed away. After recent long slow runs (e.g., MMT/2, BRR, etc.) it's a chance to blow the dust out of the tubes and see whether the old legs can still twitch.



(map by GPS Visualizer) |

Suboptimal pacing? My middle name! The bright orange singlet I wear reads "12:00+" on the back, and splits by my watch tell the sorry tale of deceleration: 6:59 + 7:45 + 8:00 + 8:17. The official results have me at 31:04, beaten by 50 men and 10 women but by only one man older than me.

The first mile of Sue & Connie's is contains ~100 foot of drop; there's ~30 feet of up and down in miles 2 and 3, and ~100 foot climb back to the start in the final mile. My GPS, on the other hand, says:

... which confirms my rule-of-thumb: subtract 100-200 feet/mile from claimed GPS elevation change to get something in the ballpark of the truth.

(cf. SueWenRun (2002-05-29), 2007-05-28 - Sue and Connie's Run, 2008-05-26 - Rock Creek Trail plus Sue and Connie's Run, 2009-05-25 - RCT plus Sue and Connie's Run, ...) - ^z - 2010-06-09