This weekend started out on Friday night with a 5k race held in Crystal City. It was the second of the 5 scheduled races that are part of the the Pacers 'Crystal Run 5k Fridays'. My friend Danielle works the races helping promote Muscle Milk, but decided to run this Friday as well. So myself and Danielle's roommate also signed up to run. It was pretty chilly Friday evening with temperatures only in the mid 40's and an on and off again rain. Fortunately after getting our bib numbers, we were able to wait inside the lobby of a business building until just before lining up for the race. Right after the gun went off, I immediately lost Danielle and Katy in the sea of black, white, and a red running attire, so I just ran the race by myself. All was good until about the 2.5 mile mark and the rain really started coming down again. By this time though, my body was well heated up from the running, so the rain actually felt pretty nice, at the finish we were all soaking wet from both sweat and the rain. It was quite the experience.
I finished in just under 25 minutes, not too shabby I guess considering I've never done anything like this before. Haven't decided yet either if I'll participate in any of the remaining 3 races. But here's a screen shot of my time, and a photo of me crossing the finish line....with a perplexed look on my face.
I had plans do get a mountain bike ride in at Fountainhead park on Saturday morning, but that was foiled by the rain that decided to fall on Friday night. I was still made it out to Fountainhead though to cheer on my friend Andy [whose blog is now linked over there on the right] who ran in the Bull Run 50 miler. It's a 50 mile trail running race, yea running! Andy ran 50 miles on some of our area's trails, almost a double marathon, insane. He finished in 8 hours and 49 minutes, and this was the longest he had ever ran in a race. A group of us gathered at Fountainhead to cheer him on at a checkpoint that was both at mile 28 and at 38, then his brother and I drove over to Hemlock park to see Andy cross the finish line. I have a hard time comprehending running a marathon, much less a double! Here's a picture of the group at Fountainhead, and some pictures I grabbed of Andy at the finish line.
I finished in just under 25 minutes, not too shabby I guess considering I've never done anything like this before. Haven't decided yet either if I'll participate in any of the remaining 3 races. But here's a screen shot of my time, and a photo of me crossing the finish line....with a perplexed look on my face.
I had plans do get a mountain bike ride in at Fountainhead park on Saturday morning, but that was foiled by the rain that decided to fall on Friday night. I was still made it out to Fountainhead though to cheer on my friend Andy [whose blog is now linked over there on the right] who ran in the Bull Run 50 miler. It's a 50 mile trail running race, yea running! Andy ran 50 miles on some of our area's trails, almost a double marathon, insane. He finished in 8 hours and 49 minutes, and this was the longest he had ever ran in a race. A group of us gathered at Fountainhead to cheer him on at a checkpoint that was both at mile 28 and at 38, then his brother and I drove over to Hemlock park to see Andy cross the finish line. I have a hard time comprehending running a marathon, much less a double! Here's a picture of the group at Fountainhead, and some pictures I grabbed of Andy at the finish line.
Support Group
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| Pete, Greg, [a different] Andy, Kayla, myself, and [runner] Andy's kids, Luke, and Noah Race director greeting Andy at the finish line |
50 miles in 8 hours 49 minutes
Yesterday I was able to get in another long road bike ride in preparation for my 100 mile ride coming up in June. This week I rode 60 miles, up 10 from last week's 50 mile ride. At the end of last week's ride, I was really hurting, the last 5 miles were pretty hard. This week though, I felt great throughout the whole ride, and really started trucking it the last 5 miles and finished pretty strong, instead of limping it in dead tired. This was very encouraging for me, because it feels like my body in finally starting to get used to being in the saddle for extended amounts of time.
This week I rode from Vienna, along the W&OD and Curtis Trails into DC, then picked up the Mt Vernon trail, and rode all the way down to Mt Vernon, then turned around rode all the way back. On my return trip I stopped at Gravelly Point briefly and took the video below of a plane landing at Reagan National Airport. I had always heard of Gravelly Point but had never been there, so it was kinda cool to see it firsthand. Overall it was a pretty fun ride, with lots of change in scenery. Also, the route into DC is the same route that I'd take to ride into work, and now that I know how to do that, I'll probably start commuting to work via bike in another month or so once the weather is a tad more stable and the sunlight comes out a little earlier. Anyway, here's the workout summary from this week's ride, and a video from when I stopped at Gravelly Point. Enjoy!
1 comment:
You've had a very active weekend!
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