September 17 - September 23, 2012

Got out of work early enough to get around 1730 and headed down onto Matthew Henson toward Queensguard field.  In the beginning, hammy were stiff and somewhat sore.  Halfway into my run on the field, I felt fine, and open strikes more.  I ended up running 41m’34s’ for the night, approx. 6 miles. 

Had a good night sleep and ran in the morning near work by crossing Fourteenth Street Bridge and back to DC by Memorial Bridge; I ran for 48m’30s’ and approx. 6.7 miles.

Wednesday was workout on MC track.  The plan was take it easy after that 21 miles long run, so I planned to run five reps of a mile at six minutes pace with 400m or 3:00 recover jog whichever necessary.  Fall is here and sun getting set early, I met up with Arthur long before everyone get to the track, get our warm up done, and stroll onto the oval.  I must say that he is an excellent pace setter and help me have them going; but he only did 3 repeats, so I had to carried the last two on my own. 

Splits:

5m'59.18
5m'59.17
5m'56.33
5m'58.50
6m'03.78

I logged 10.5 miles for the day after concluding warm up, repeats, recovery jog, and warm down.  What a day!  Something was not right after workout, I felt my left hip was tight and sore.  I think the IT band was tight up, I hoped for the best.

I skipped the Thursday morning run, iced IT band/hip very well, and ran easy eight miles near home in the evening.  I couldn't get to run on Friday morning, make an excuse for myself, and took a day off.  Saturday was Needwood Lake Cross Country 10K.

I got to starting line and get the course set up with Bill.  Needwood is my second and last race as an assistant director.  In 2013, I will direct a 5K race under MCRRC's Championship series.  Before I set up the course, I was thinking bail out the race.  Then, after I heard the Park Service did a good job on clear out the course.  I decided to race at the last minute, but run it very carefully.  As time went by, GO was shout, and I was stroll down the grass field with ladies-gentlemen-boys-n-girls.  It was two loops of 5K xc course, I think I didn't pretty good job on it.  I split 22m'06s' at the half and clocked 22m'01s' at finish.

The main reason I took it easy at Needwood was I plan to run Bachman Valley Half Marathon on Sunday morning in Westminster MD.  Before bedtime on Saturday night, I swore to know that race start at 08:30 and didn't bother to check their website.

Sunday morning, I awoke at 6, have Joe and begals at 0635, and drove down driveway at 0707.  I thought we get to Westminster right on time; turn out, I was late.  I was late for 16-minute.

Race director still let me run the race with a very-late-late-start.  If you look at the official time, my time is label as:

https://sites.google.com/site/wrrclub/results/bvhm_2012 

38 ... .. ..  Montgomery County RRC       1:41:20.2  (Late Start, 1:26.45)

Splits on my watch (net time) is

1.0	06:06.4
2.0	06:58.7
3.0	06:50.7
4.0	06:43.6
5.0	06:28.5
6.0	06:23.5
7.0	06:29.4
8.0	06:24.3
9.0	06:25.9
10.0	06:47.7
11.0	06:48.2
12.0	06:30.3
13.0	06:15.7
13.1	01:33.0

1h'26m'45.7s' - since the race was not chip, then result is based on gun-time. 

The race was pretty hilly, but not as hilly as Riley, and is actually more downhills than ups.  I really like the race and I think I will go back again in 2013.  

By looking at the result, something made me bump the most is if I  started the race with everyone else as a normal person, I would had place at nineth overall and second age group.  Also, if I started  it regularly, I might be able to run a better time with some competition near by; with late start, I was basicly doing a lot of chasing.  ~_~

I made a terrible mistake, but it is good lesson to learn from; however, on a personal note, I ran a very strong race and I think I should be able to do something similar in Falls Road 15K next weekend.  I'll see...