Running relief from my vacation

View of the Capital from the Newseum building

Today's run (street): 4.8 miles

The idea of needing a vacation from your vacation held true this week. After three days of visiting the sights of DC, including Arlington National Cemetery, the Smithsonian, the Spy Museum, the Newseum, Ford's Theater, the Senate and Capital buildings and Chinatown, I was exhausted. Following that was a day at Williamsburg Revolutionary City and then a day at Busch Gardens. After all that, we still had the long ride back to Long Island. I'm happy to have the weekend to recover!

In the past, I've tried to incorporate a little running tourism into my vacations. However, I didn't feel comfortable being alone on the streets of DC at dawn, so my only choice was to use the hotel's treadmill. Williamsburg offered a safer venue, but the streets didn't have sidewalks so, once again, I chose the treadmill. I didn't run every day but with all the ground we covered walking, I got a good week's workout.

This morning was my first opportunity to run outside since last Sunday, when I covered three miles before we left on our trip. It was no surprise that the humidity was high this morning, but I thought the low cloud cover would keep conditions tolerable. I think the miles of walking this week paid off, because I felt good from the start and covered my distance with little trouble.

Although it will be a low mileage week for running, it was great for conditioning and fitness. With the Dirty Sock 10K coming up in a couple of weeks, I may head to the Bethpage trails tomorrow morning to kick off my race training. That is, unless it rains. In that case, it will be back on the treadmill...

Don't tread on me (unless there's no other choice)

Today's run (treadmill): 3.1 miles

We've had three days of historical saturation between visits to Ford's Theater, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the International Spy Museum and Historic Williamsburg. But even with both DC and Virginia offering great running options, I've been relegated to fitness centers for my workouts.

We'll be out all day and evening so, once again, I went for a treadmill run this morning. I like hotel treadmills, although I wasn't familiar with the Spirit brand. It wasn't as solid as the PreCor and Life Fitness units that seem to be the standard for most hotels, but it did the job.

Although I skipped my run on Wednesday, the 20M steps we're covering daily should help make up for that.

Capital running in DC

Sunday's run (treadmill): 3.1 miles Today's run (treadmill): 3.1 miles We left early Sunday morning in order to get to DC in time to see some of the many things we've planned for this trip. An hour and a half spent at Arlington National Cemetery was inspiring and provided a challenging workout, with numerous hills and hot humid conditions. I had thoughts of running the Mall in DC from the Lincoln Memorial to the monument, but it's impractical to do that this trip. So far my DC running has been limited to the hotel t readmill. No problem with that. I'm a fan of fitness center treadmills and I seem to be able to maintain faster paces on them compared with my home unit. Lots of walking yesterday as well, and today is no different. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to run outside once our vacation continues in Virginia.

Liquid exhaustion

Yesterday's run (treadmill): 30 minutes
Today's run (street) 5.25 miles

Circuitous route

I was tired on Thursday morning and (no surprise) my run was slow. Yesterday morning I felt the same, so I skipped my morning run altogether. I'm not sure why I lacked energy on these two days but it definitely affected my motivation to run. After a half day in the office I headed home feeling more inclined to work out, so I took the opportunity to fit in a 30 minute treadmill run.

Despite yesterday's brutal heat and high humidity, I remained relatively dry during my indoor run. Credit goes to the big fan we've positioned directly in front of the treadmill. I didn't push my pace but, by the time I reached my planned finish time, I was completely soaked with sweat. I'd placed an icy glass filled with Gatorade G2 on the side table of the bed to drink after I'd completed my run. As they say, I was keeping my eye on the prize.

This morning I took it outside with no planned route, but an intention of running five miles. The dew point was approaching 70 by the time I set off and I tried to keep a sustainable pace that would allow me to cover my planned distance. I hadn't matched my normal pace since Wednesday morning's run. Today was no different but my focus was on distance, not speed.

The hot sun and the moisture in the air wore me down, mile by mile, but I still had enough in the tank to cover 5-plus miles. I'm accustomed to being sweaty after these long runs, but today it looked and felt like I had stepped out of a lake as I walked into the house. Every square inch of skin was wet and my clothing was completely saturated. Although I felt no aerobic strain during the run, I was still breathing heavily five minutes after the finish. It was more exhausting than I realized.

I'm on vacation this coming week and I hope to get a chance to run in Washington DC while we're there. If that's not practical, I may need to settle for the fitness center in the hotel. It's less stimulating to run indoors. But, with this weather, I'll fully appreciate the air conditioned experience.

A reason to appreciate my next good run

Today's run (street): 2.5 miles

Tuesday's post contained a quote about relishing bad runs so that you'll appreciate the good ones. I had plenty of reason to relish this morning because I ran my route over a minute slower than yesterday. I knew I was in for a disappointing time from the beginning. I may have improved my pace in the second half, but it was fairly pathetic effort.

Every weekday morning I question my expectations for performance. I'm out of bed at 3:45 AM and standing on my driveway ten minutes later. While I'm definitely a morning person and a morning runner, I understand that my body may not respond as well after abruptly waking up  from a sound sleep. Sometimes it does respond and other times, like today, it doesn't.

Today my legs felt leaden and that affected the fluidity of my form. Affected in the sense that I had no form. The residual tiredness, that I usually lose after a few minutes during these runs, remained. On Tuesday and Wednesday I'd pushed myself at certain times and ended up with decent overall paces. I had no appetite for that today and kept both my effort and heart rate low.

In the end, I was disappointed to see how slowly I had run. I was secretly hoping that the Garmin would show (despite my less than vigorous effort) that I'd actually flown through the course. The fact is that you get out what you put into a workout, and I contributed very little. So I'll relish this sub-par experience knowing how much I'll appreciate my next good run. Anyway, that's what I'm telling myself.