Day 225
I ran 56 miles last week
Monday: usually rest day, I rested
Tuesday: 4-ish miles with the group. I showed up in three layer shirt and did not realize it was 60 (15 C). Hot night.
Wednesday: rest night
Thursday: group run canceled because of rain and no one showed up. I ran 4-5 miles at least I think. I forgot. Cold and wet night.
Friday: 9 miles. cold and windy night. 37 F (3 C) when I started and tried to finish as fast as possible to avoid being out in the 20s.
Sat. 14+6. beautiful day, nippy in the morning. I finally went out on the trail. Woke up late and got to the trail by 11 am (I was 3 hrs late). I did 14 miles in about 5 hrs. So ended up mostly hiking. I was supposed to do more; Buzzard Hill + Ashby Hollow. This place was where I planned to do two weekends ago. Better late than never. By the time I got to Ashby Hollow, it was 2 pm. I decided to turn around, otherwise I might not get out of the woods until 9 or 10 pm. I only ‘ran’ 7 miles then and it took me 3 hours. I decided to hold off Ashby Hollow segment for another weekend. That should be only 5 more miles / 10 miles for out-and-back. I saw a couple at that point, who was probably doing the whole thing that day (24-25 miles for them). We passed each other when I started out and we were passing again at Ashby Hollow – well they could have been tailing me the whole time. They went on ahead into Ashby Hollow.
I got 2000+ ft of climbing in that stetch of about 7 miles (4000 ish at the end of my out and back). They don’t call the section the roller coaster for no reason. It was a lot of ups and downs.
I got home by 5 pm and decided I need some real running and did 6 miles in the neighborhood. It was so different to run on flat pavement. I could actually run and breath. Trail running really took my heart out of me. I thought I could run, but out on the trail, I was just like everybody else.
Sunday: 3.1 (5K) in the morning. 16 more miles in the afternoon. I did the airport/Arlington loop again.
How do I feel? I feel the miles started to get to me. Even with two days of rest in the week, I started out with tired legs on most of the runs. You know the feeling. Legs were heavy. This is my third week of putting up 50+ miles of training.
But I got 3rd place in my age group on my 5K race “Run Your Heart Out 5K”. My 2nd time being on the podium! I ran mine out. I was not fast (26:30) at all but the people who usually beat me were not there. I had run a 24 min time before and still not get a 3rd place, so I was glad to be on the podium this time!

