run1 – 6 miles this run. Total traveled for GVRAT so far 6 miles.
I found myself something to rally around for next few months. When my Facebook notification popped up from one of my former race directors – with something like this: would you like to run across Tennessee?
At first I was skeptical. Ya you go run yourself across TN. I am interested but I’m not there yet in my ability.
Then I saw the word “virtually”. I’m sold. As long as I could sleep in my own bed.
Take my money. Please. I insist. Take a few dollars more for some good cause.
I paid my entrance fee and off I went during my lunch hour. I am running off to TN for the next three months (virtually) in small cap. Whoo hoo.
As I ran, I started to calculate the feasibility. Sure, in 100 days, if I do 6 miles a day, will get me 600 miles. 1000k is 621.4 miles. I need about 4 more days. Gaah, I should do about 10k for the next 100 days. It is definitely doable. I can add in 13-14 days of rest (give me 114 days). It will take 3 months and 24 days.
Here is where my first run ended.
6 miles, finished at the fire stationOur humble sign: Welcome to Centreville. I have been looking for this sign for ages. They should put “population: 71,135” underneath (2010 figure)
My progress is being tracked somewhere on here. You can still sign up for the race [1]. They say they will give a map of my progress by tomorrow. I am doing my own map with some wizardry from Google and images from there to give a sense where I am in Tennessee! Actually after consulting the map, I am in Arkansas. Pretty awesome.
Virtual run summary. I started at about 4 pm GMT, local time was probably 11. Many probably were there in the early wee hours, maybe 5:00 or 6:00 AM GMT and were already on their way. I didn’t see anyone myself, but knowing the field now have over 12000 entrants, I will bound to run into some. People can still join until August 1. My plan is to start putting in some heavy miles to give enough buffer and maybe if I still feel up to it I will run back to the start in a month or so. Hopefully I will get to the front of the pack soon.
Today though, I am just easing into it and chose to stop after a brief jog. I did about 6 miles starting from the Mississippi River and running along the levee. And ended somewhere near a post office.
so here is what I am supposed to run with the help of satellite image from Google map.Day 1. Ending point. Landmark. image of what is there. US post office. About half mile from today stopping point.
I wish I can find some images of the mississippi River of the starting point.
This is a lot of work to pull images off the web, not sure if I can keep up like this every day. But I really wish to see more of Tennessee virtually through the run. Can’t wait until I get to Memphis or any bigger city!
There were a lot farm land.
If I am doing it for real, I would have to find a place to sleep for the night. I wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the road and call it a day. Today though, being near a PO is good enough.
I chickened out to do my 50+ miles last weekend even though it was a perfect weekend.
I did a long run though – a 7 hour marathon. Yes it was super long. I did not feel motivated to push myself to run faster. I dragged myself out the house in the morning. That’s good in itself.
When I started, I was kind of aiming to run for as long as I could until I drop, maybe to midnight. I checked the weather. It was against me, forecasting that rain in the evening and lasting into the next day. I know I might need 12-13 hours to finish a 50+ miles, and so would be caught in it. Not good.
I was going to try to run a 50 miles any way but only half heartedly. That was the reason the first 27 was so slow. I aimed to save my energy for the second half.
I had no committed plan in mind when I started off. I was smart enough to bring myself a bottle of water and the runner backpack this time. For food, I was expected to stop back at the house from time to time to top off on fruit cups and all other goodies.
My route was going to be a 4 loops of 13 miles around the neighborhood, like many times I did before. However having done that so many times already, it would be a boring run. I decided not thinking about it and just go by feel. I don’t know how to explain this. If I feel good I’d run, if not I quit. Yes, it was a very dangerous thought to have on a long run, because I will likely quoit prematurely.
It took me a while to get going. It was nippy (50-55F) about 10C. Normally cold doesn’t bother me. But recently, 50F was not something I can handle in short sleeves. I put on a second layer with a long sleeves, which was my normal winter run getup when it is 30 F outside. I was feeling wimpy because the cold.
I walked the first few miles to get my core temperature up. Ditched the outer layer. I tied it to my waist.
Through out the run it was like this. It was a combination of walk and run and repeat. Note I normally do not walk on my run.
First few miles. I love this neighborhood and this was where I started to seriously run
I stopped by my mom’s place, which was around mile 6. I haven’t seen her for two weeks. Of course we kept our distance and I didn’t go inside the house. She came out with water for me. I didn’t need it because I was carrying my own today.
Normally at this point I would turn around and head back home and then repeat to build up the mileage.
Today I felt a bit wanderlust. I headed away from my house on Stringfellow Rd (weird name) toward the other direction. I was brave enough to cross the divided highway, Lee Jackson Mem Hwy.
I don’t usually go here because it is on the other side of the busy highway. It led to a part of the bike trail that I never ran on but it is considered one of the pride trails of the Fairfax County.
The trail runs along side of the Fairfax County Parkway, which crosses the whole county from the south-eastern end to the north-western end. The road was built recently (about 20 years). Note we rarely laid down a completely new road here. This road was one of the big undertaking.
This road is long. The mile marker where I entered the road was at 26.5. That was maybe little more than half way. I don’t know how long the road is. Maybe 40 miles? (I looked it up 35 miles)
First time running on the Fairfax County Parkway. North bound at mile 26
The bike trail is beautiful. The whole trail is wide and mostly rustic feel and plenty room to run. My goal was to run as far as I could. At that time my mind went into full planning mode. I want to run 26 miles before heading back. However, I might likely get caught by the storm later on my way back and I didn’t have my rain jacket with me. I was not willing to rough it out with the element. I also didn’t have my flashlight. The trail has no street lights and is rather remote from residents and markets.
At that point it was around 8 miles into the run. I know the trail has only a few businesses until I get to the city of Reston. To me Reston was very far away. I know how to get there by car but never attempted by running there before. It is crazy to even think about it. I did a quick math. Normally it would take me 25 mins in a car from my house. I decided to run until 3 pm then turn around assuming I might not able to reach Reston at all.
It was noon at the time. I was kind of regretted of not accepting food from my mom when I made a stop at her house. I started to feel hungry.
Fairfax County Parkway is like an interstate, so each exit or cross road is far away. This is good for runners and bikers because we don’t have to stop frequently to cross a road. It is amazing they built skybridges for us on some intersections so we don’t have to navigate through the car traffic.
I kept on trudging. In the end I saw Reston from the distance as it’s skyscrapers and office buildings came into view.
Reston being seen from the Fairfax county parkway overpass. The city is our silicon valley here in Fairfax/northern VA. It has many tech companies and data centers. It is still being developed.
I didn’t get to Reston Town Center, which was about few more miles (three-ish) but I turned off at Target to buy lunch. It was the first store I saw.
Healthy lunch! Strawberry Banana Smoothie with no added sugar. Forgot to check the calories.Adding some more substance to my lunch – Bear Naked’s Granola trail mix. If it is good for bears it is good for me
After lunch, I decided to turn around. The return trip was pretty boring. I didn’t get caught in the storm. I made a second stop at my mom’s place and she made me a real smoothie of her specialty an avocado smoothie. It was a great boost to my strength. I was at mile 20, generally, hitting my ‘wall’ (my glycogen limit – emptying my energy store). It was 3 pm by then.
However, I was not as tired as in the last marathon but I just was not as motivated to run. I was still on the fence whether to run another 26 miles but internally I was kind of dragging my feet. I knew deep down I didn’t want to do it. So I was mostly walking the last six miles. I hit the wall I think, but it was not that bad. I was just tired and I could feel my feet was not ready to run the diatance. It was like if I push on some more on, my feet would sustain so injury. Having run long enough from experience you could feel it if you are healthy or not, or know if you are tired versus that your body is about to crashed. It was probably at mile 24. I decided I wouldn’t go out for another loop and called it a day.
I was happy with the decision to head home. I was hungry. There was no point to drag out for another 6-7 hours when rain would come and darkness fall. The worse thing is to run when I not feeling it. It would be just miserable out on the road. I will save that 50+ miles for another day.
The overall route and race clock. I didn’t pause my watch even when I stopped at my mom’s place or at Target. I am old school. The clock kept ticking to simulate race condition.
Final thought? Nothing deep but some observations. I went back to a neighbhood/corporate park I thought was beautiful, however, it didn’t look that pretty on camera. My mood changed too I think. Oh, I came across the sign welcome to Centreville, but my phone was out of battery at the time to take a shot.
Originally, the purpose (a side mission any way) of this run was to shoot photos for one of my earlier race reports. I think though I was at some of the same places as before but it did not evoke the same feeling. They say you can’t step on the same river twice. I ended up not posting those pictures.
Nothing spectacular this week. I ran less frequently than I should. I couldn’t remember what held me back. Maybe, because my running usually occurred during dinner time and this week I lost it to my appetite. I have gained couple pounds.
I really need to push my running to the morning.
Monday-Friday: none
Saturday: 27 to Reston
Sunday: 13 miles around the neighborhood
It is official that my race in June won’t be taking place. I won’t have to train for it any more. It was a good thing because I was way behind on my training.
So my next race will be in July. There is uncertainty if the race will remain. July race is a 50K so, not really something I worry about.
I plan to run a 50 miler in August. I haven’t signed up for that. Will see how the coronavirus turn out by then.
Let see if I could answer this in one blog post. I have been hinting here and there.
First off, why do I blog? Not in any particular order, here below:
1. curiosity of WP and blogging as a whole because I never really put myself out there. I do have a Livejournal and a Tumblr but that never really take off, probably lack of community or weird community that didn’t align with me. WP has a good attraction. I see it is working. Some day, I wish to revive my LJ or my tumblr and sync them together.
2. A memory dump. I have short term memory. I want to jot down something I can look back on. It is a project. More on this.
3. I want to share with like minded people. I took up running and I started to follow other runners. I want to contribute my 2-cent. In a sense it is my community. When people read my stuff and comment on my posts, it makes me feel appreciated of the time spent writing them. It generates a feedback loop, which is a very good feeling. Running is my passion the last few years and I can’t stop talking about it day and night. WP is a platform I encountered many other runners who blog about their races. Running/write about my runs is one primary reason for this blog as stated in my tagline, and my profile. It is every where on my site in big neon sign.
4. The life project and keeping myself on track. I started this blog with a goal to remake myself. It has been very hard. Change is never easy. Change means to do something different from what I am currently doing. I wrote several blog posts about transformation. Somehow I want to go from Point A to Point B. This blog serves as a manifesto for that. It is a learning process. I don’t have all the answers. Some answers maybe, and even with the part I do know, it is very hard. I have seen where I took one step forward and two steps back. There are a lot distractions in life. I constantly go from one thing to another. Having this here, and looking at it from time to time reminds me this is what I am aiming for and this is how I see progress.
5. A place to rant and trying a new idea and/or seeking inputs. In writing things down, I go through a mental process of evaluating my ideas. It slow down my thinking process. Many of my trips started out as a blog post here. I lay out my plan and my evaluation afterward. Occasionally people commented on my posts and it helps me to think more about it.
6. A place to show off myself of course. I impress myself from time to time. Many things I did, might not be impressive at the time, but after a while, I look back and I am kind of amazed that I did all that. For example, I set a PR (personal best) on a 5k run one summer, and at the time I thought that was not much and I would break it in no time, however, that record has been standing for three years. And looking back, I am amazed that was me back then. I have some of my fans who think I am awesome. I am, but I like that feeling too to be an ‘expert’ at something.
7. A tool to communicate. This is obvious. All writing is meant to be read. I started running to impress my lady. And I was certain that she would like to read this and be impressed by it. So it is really is for my woman. Unfortunately, she doesn’t read it. Also many (if not all the) people I care about, you can say in the (my) real world, don’t read my stuff. But I have a steady stream of virtural or online followers who I never met in real life (face to face) who do read my stuff, so I am very happy.
8. Making friends. It ties everything together. I saw some blogs that been around for many years like 5-6 years and the author is fairy consistent in putting out a post every month, yet it has no follower. Only the author know about the site visitor statistics. My point is some author like to write something, regardless it is being read it or not. It seems sad. My blog might be like that too. However, I had couple readers who are actively engage in my posting and it really brings this goal across. Writing is meant to be read and talk about. More than that it builds friendship whether near or far. There is a dynamic. There are people who care about if the quarantine is driving me crazy. There are things I read on here (WP) that really touch my heart.
I wanted to write this post for a long time. I think I might have done one but I am too lazy to go back to check. That is one of my complaints of WP or blog, that you don’t remember what you wrote and it is difficult to find out. If it is a repetition, I apologize. I repeat myself a lot and tend to forget about what I wrote or didn’t write.
Second point: Why did I run?
The answer is simple. woman and passion. I originally planned this to be a separate posting. Until a reader asked me about it while this blog was being prepared. The answer is pretty much the same, so I decided to combine it to one.
A woman got me into running of course, but then I found my true love through her. I haven’t gone to bed without thinking or talking about it – day and night it is on my mind and that has been for the past four years.
The woman I was dating at the time ran marathons. It was natural or so I thought for me to run as well. I loved it the first time I did it. In my mind I was good at it. I still think I am pretty good. My time is decent. It is not the fastest but people would love to do what I can do. Of course I based my time off her time. At that point I didn’t know or realize guys usually are a bit better than women physically. It was not a surprise I could run faster than her. In no time, I was outdoing her. I am naturally an overachiever. But still my aim was to impress her. I think she was impressed! She is the only woman I know who listened to me talk about my race and not get bored and I went on and on 24-7. And you can tell, I was not putting her to sleep with my talk. Many do have their eyes gazed over if I go into it for too long. Hence, I started blogging instead of talking to people about it.
Today, I have done more marathons than I can count with my hands or toes (well almost). I think I did 17-18 to date, not including the ultras or virtual races. I looked at it and I feel pretty impressed. I remember I was at a marathon finish not long ago (NCR Marathon) and got on a bus to take me back to the starting line. I talked with woman who also just finished and waiting to get back to the start where we had our cars parked. She told me she has done something between 26 or 34 marathons. I had only done about 4 including the one I just did at the time. In my mind, I was wondering when would I be like that. I was floored by her at that time because she was the first person I met who done ridculously a lot of marathons (at that time anything more than the fingers on hands is a lot). She blew my boat out the water. Now looking back, I am not that far behind her. She was telling me she only started a few years ago. It was unbelievable.
I still run hoping to impress ladies, misguided as it may be. Guys are weird, I tell you or is it just me. I do feel proud of my ability. I am running farther and farther each year (with a goal one day soon I might cross the continent on foot). I think that is very impressive. If I think rationally though, it is difficult to impress the public about running. Maybe impress is the wrong word – more like get them to feel the passion about it.
Many in the general public cannot really relate to running. To most a 3 mile is same as a 13 mile or a 26 mile (a marathon) because it is incomprehensible since not a lot can run even a mile. At first I thought that was an exception. I went on a hike with this lady once (a hike by the public definition, now a day a hike for me has to be 20+ miles). Afterward, she wanted to run. I think my talk of running was rubbing off me to her. So we ran. It was maybe even less of a quarter mile in she was out of breath (as if she was about to be passed out). I was – stunt. What did I do! She was not running at my speed. I slowed down myself even at the very beginning. Any way, since then I realize I have an ability to run that some people don’t. This point was made clearly to me last summer when I got Lyme disease and couldn’t do any physical activity at all. I imagine now everyone in the public have something like Lyme disease that prevents them from running and enjoying it. That is the key, enjoying. Most people think of running as suffering.
So whether 1 mile or 10 mile or a marathon, they are all tough distances to the public. I always joke about that a marathon is like a 5k vs versa. In a sense yes. A marathon could be as easy as a 5K and a 5K is as hard a marathon. One mile is just tough for one who has not done it yet and if they try think ya 26 times of that, it is impossible to do that.
I have a friend who I hike with from time to time. She understands mile and stuff better than me, because she can innately tell you how far a mile is (I can’t do it without a gps watch). She is surprised that I can’t tell how far a mile is even after all these years. She said she just does. Yet if I say I will be running 50 miles or 26 miles this weekend, there is still a disconnect of not understand immediately what that means because she hasn’t run that distance before. I sense the glazed look from her. The crazyness she think I am in. But if I tell her I am hiking 26-50 miles over the weekend, then she gets it. She knows I will be having a heaven of a time. She would say sweet. Enjoy yourself out there, but she won’t say that if I say I am going out to run such and such miles.
While I talked about running with her, it was like reading from a dictionary. She can define all the terms and stuff but she has no functional understanding about them. Running is not her thing and it was not translatable to her from her hiking experience. That’s ok. That was the reason I have the blog. It captures the feeling that I hope can be lasting memorial of a run or a race that she can understand.
When you like something so much, you want the people around to get it too!
I probably could create a big list of reasons why I run like why I blog. Almost each post I have is a reason why I am doing it. The list mirrors the above why do I blog — which now you know is to share why I run. Ha.
Meta: crazy dangerous undo function in WP app can delete the content of an unpublished post. There is no undo of the undo (redo doesn’t work). Don’t play around with the undo function in the app. I can’t stand the web version either. (Sorry again for those who received this twice)
It’s Week 13 or something. About 7 more weeks left before my race if there is one.
Total is around 25-30 miles something. It is much much less than I want, but what do I do? I am sorely distracted by the coronavirus as you can tell from my previous posts.
Monday – 4. I felt so guilty of not doing my daily run, I got out and ran on my supposingly rest day. Monday usually my rest day. But what to rest when the whole week has been resting.
Tuesday – 6. I think was 6. I don’t remember how I feel. Usually bad. I haven’t workout at my max heart rate and now each run is like a struggle.
Wednesday. 7. Might been more. I think I really enjoyed the run by today
Thursday. I think was 0. I think I goofed off that day.
Friday–Saturday. 0. I started to have amnesia. Each day blended together. I felt I did go out and did 10 miles but the memory was so vague. I don’t remember what happened. Then for Friday night, I planned to wake up at 3 AM to do my 52 mile run on early Saturday, but it wasn’t meant to be. I chicken out. The weather wasn’t too good, the wind was strong, it was cold. yadda yadda. It was raining. I then went to bed again around 6 am in the morning and woke up at noon time. Nope still not good to run. I went back to bed around 3 pm after eaten lunch and did my laundry. Woke up around 6 pm. The weather was nice then. Sunny. Nope don’t feel like running on an empty stomach. More the same until Sunday morning. I laid in bed at night and watched videos.
Sunday 12-13. I felt I had another chance to do a run. Woke up at 3 am again but it was too dark outside to be running. I was a big wuss. I didn’t get out the door until it was 4 pm more than 12 hours later. Doing just one loop. Yay. done.
I don’t know. Actually I do know myself. I hate long runs. The thought about it would make me want to put it off. With run. I have to just do it. It is not bad once I get going. The hard part is to get going. Or I have to lie to myself, like let go for a walk.
I hate being the only one out there. The cold and dark thing bother me. However, those were exactly the things/feeling I like. I like being alone by myself on the road or in the woods cranking at it. Weird. I can’t explain it. It is a both a love and hate. When I run I feel to be myself – the real me. I am not very good at it but I do feel I am in my element. I am in my world and I could go on and on. The world disappears before me. Pyschologically, probably is disassociation. I am in my own world. There is a peace there.
Then of course I get exhausted, and nothing matters any more by that time, and I couldn’t keep a single thought straight, yet my body is still able to hammer away. During the run, I had clear insight of how to describe it and then it became incomprehensible now. Readers will have to wait till next time when I remember about this. I hate to get that tired and yet I love it.
Injury: I don’t really have any yet. I know it takes time to build up the base again. I wish running is easy. I can tell by fourth and fifth run my legs do not like me very much. They are hinting saying they are not ready for this. Running involves luck. I am not always at my peak. I feel it takes luck to have everything together – my mental game and my body to coordinate together. Finger crossed no injury.
I hope to do a post over the weekend, so this is more like a mid week posting for me, but to you readers, it is weekend already.
Time flies. While in college, my roommate used to tease me whenever I said time flies. He would ask me to show him how does it fly or something like that, because he likes to be very literal — since both of us were majoring in engineering, we were literal and only say things with precision.
Time does fly. Oh Boy. I can’t believe a week has gone by. Not just a week, but a month. Five weeks I think of being stuck at home, 40 days to be exact since we have the first coronavirus case in the DC area. Why does it matter? Like everyone because of it, our lives – my life has been turned up side down. I know, I can’t consider myself suffering – having read and saw on the news of those who lost someone in this pandemic. Or those whose job was lost from the all the closings. I read a sad posting of a runner losing her father to the virus on here WP. Not sure if it is alright to share it, because it is not my story. Yet, it was very touching because it brought the virus to a personal level and not something I read on the news. [1]
My personal experience during these five weeks was not bad as all. As I wrote in other entries, it was more like a dream vacation. I am working from home of course, so it was not like a vacation-vacation per se. But it can be as relax as it can get. I won’t go into the details, but you can imagine. I do dress up each day and treat my work as if I am at the office from 9-5. I have a separate area just for work. However, all work is hectic and burdensome – real pain in the butt – if I have the choice to retire, I would, except I am still too young. Everyone say I have 30+ years to put in my due. More on retirement in another post – I try to be one of the FIRE, google it.
So working from home is not coasting at all. There are a lot I can say about it. My stress level is through the roof, yes coping with the virus plus just normal business cycle, we have a lot work – not a down turn at all for us, plus our company is in a transition to a new ownership, and plus a relocation of office. Yes, everything is through the roof. Virus thing and closing regulations are not helping when you need to get certain things to happen by a certain date. Things go wrong when they are not supposed to go wrong. I think like an engineer you know. We should have everything in control. I won’t get into it, but that is the stress of required me(or my company) to do the impossible each day.
I keep saying each day is like the day before and each week is like the week before. The only thing changes is how the coronavirus is spreading. In our community, we have over 1000 infections (1375). We have about 1 million people in our county. So it is 1375/mil, and can be thought of roughly is 1 in 1000 (my neighboring state and/or county is double that even though we are identical in every way – I will write in a separate post why that is if I get to it – make you think how the statistics is being counted). What this means is there is likely within a typical week, I would run into one person who has it. And this is the known infections (what is counted). They say the unknown (unreported) numbers of infection might be has high as 10 times that, so at 1 in 100.
Well I don’t think I would come into contact of 1000 people in a week especial now in a lockdown mode or else I am not locking down. But think with me, would a store or restaurant (carry-out) has 1000 customers in a day or in a week? I do go to the store at least once a week. Granted that those who know they have the disease would be in isolation. However, the spread is still ongoing even after a month, meaning there are still those who are carriers but don’t realize it. So 1-1000 is not farfetch at all. The window of me come in contact at that brief time is small, but in the back of my head, it is telling me, some time during today or this week, someone with the virus has passed through here!
The scary thing is I read about a store that was rumored to have 16 infections with many coming from the store employees – and the store is still open. This is a store I used to go to when I was still at work, but I haven’t gone there now since working from home. If readers want to look it up, search for Logan Circle, DC and Whole foods, infection. I won’t provide a link. This is the one that was published in the national newspaper. But the point is, how many other stores also have ‘cluster of infections’ like this except we just don’t know about? I suspected many stores are like this one and this particular store is not an exception but the norm. Hence it is still open and operating as normal!
If not for the virus, I can say with certainty what I will do over the weekend. I do have plans, but nothing is certain. Ha, this is reason for this post. Not about the virus, but my life. Yes, let get on with it and be safe about it.
One of the plans is to run a 50 mile this weekend. If I could pull this off, man, it would be one hell a weekend. It might be a 15-16 hour run. So I was thinking of starting at 3 am and finish around 6-7. I wouldn’t want to finish in the dark. I rather stsrt thr run when it is dark than finishing after sun is set.
I haven’t decided which day to do it on, Early Saturday or Sunday morning?
Also, would I quit when it becomes too hard? Last time I did it, there was no option to quit halfway because I was in the woods and usually 10-15 miles to the next aid station. The only option at the time was to run and tried to reach the aid station. Now, it could be very tempting to quit any time before the finish because the house wouldn’t be too far to get to and there is always uber (ya coronavirus etc, bad not social-distancing), but bailing option is available if ever comes to that.
I might be too chicken to do it this weekend and would have to defer to the following week or even one after. Any way, Happy Friday!
Monday – Friday o mile. Can’t remember much. There were couple days I dressed up to do a run but then wimped out at the last moment after sticking my hand out the door and pulling it back because the weather was too ‘cold’ or it was raining. There was even one night I fell asleep in my running clothes because I was too lazy to change them back – lucky I didn’t put on my running shoes. Weather has been on the cool side for us. High 50s to low 60s during the day, but fell to 45 ish at night. It was not too cold to run, but I have been wimpy lately and looked for all kinds of excuses to stay indoor.
Saturday 24. Did my around the neighborhood tour. It was my first ever to expand a bit outside of my comfort zone. My goal one day is to run across the town (the big town, into DC and beyond), which is a big project, yet I almost have everything in place for it now. Maybe next weekend or the week after, I will do it.
Most of my training runs for the past couple years have been in DC but I am not as familiar of the area around my house on foot than at my workplace. The lockdown has been an opportunity for me to explore more places nearer to home.
Sunday: 10. Going back out on the second day gave that feeling that all your bones in your body are broken. At every position I turned during my sleep, my bones would crackle. It feels good too but I am a bit worried that I am getting old. My fitness level has dropped significantly with the last four weeks of staying in. It used to be that I woke up and I was all refreshed to run again.
I had a wonderful time pondering on the meaning of life on one of my runs. I think it boils down to having able to have Choices in life. Sometimes I felt I didn’t have much choices, and felt stuck. Then I saw the choices I made and was thankful I have them. I was thinking what is driving me on? I work to have money so that I can run. Why am I running? Because I want to reach a certain goal, like to run fast enough to get into the Boston Marathon. That makes me happy.
We are ultimately pursuing something that satisfies. The process of the pursuit gives meaning to our life. At least that for me. Hunkering down inside slaving away at my work so that I could be outside and run, brings smile to my face. Then it also makes me smile when I come back in limping because I am so tired that I can’t hardly stand up. I like the irony. I ask myself all the time, do I really like running that much.
I took the suggestion of exploring some of the neighborhoods around me I am not familiar about.
Having been in the area for almost all my life, I am familiar with most places, or so I thought. There are indeed many neighborhoods that I have never been i , but only passed by in a car. We have mostly nice neighborhoods here in Northern Virginia because we are one of the top 10 or 20 richest counties in the nation, and probably the most dangerous neighborhood is the one I am in, because I am just more familiar with it with constantly hearing about crime reports on those neighborhood apps, such as Life360 or Nextdoor I’m part of.
Yesterday, having nothing more important thing to do, I got myself out the house, just to wander around. I wanted to run somewhere far. So I randomly started off in one direction without having a fixed route in my head. Normally I do have a route in mind – a practice of mine since college – like today we are doing Route Alpha, or Route Charlie, so forth. I gave my routes names. Well I was going to do the same route I have been doing the last few weeks, namely to run down on Stone Rd to Westfield, to Walney, Poplar, then Stringfellow, and turn on Lee Hwy, and back to Stone Rd. It is about a 10 mile loop and I usually add couple miles here and there and would do the loop twice to get 26.2 – a marathon.
This weekend though I didn’t feel wanting to do a loop twice. Having the confident in my ability that I can run anywhere under 50 miles and not get stranded midway, off I went. I didn’t bring water or food except an slurp bar (Science in Action); it is like yoplait but for endurance althletes.
The day was beautiful. I was not in a hurry. I got to Walney but instead of turning to Poplar, I went straight, to a strange road. I was feeling courageous today. The past two years, if I go off to a new route, I would first get into my car drive the route to measure the distance but more importantly to check the trails if it runable. Many times during halfway through a run, you discover that the sidewalk ends where you least expected. So having drive around first, kind of help you to make those safety decision of to turn around, like if the car traffic bad, the road/median does not have enough room on the shoulder, and how long do you have to be on the side of the road if you have to be on the road, stuff like that. Runners have to pay attention to those. Going into a place without first checking it out is not recommended.
Having lived in the neighborhood for 30 years did not really give me an edge. I was not a runner back then and was not much aware about whether a place is runable. This was actually the first time to have a boot on the ground even though it is “my neighborhood”. My impression of my neighborhood changed.
It was a joy to explore a new place. Being in the car in the past, did not give a sense of the how big the world is. I passed through ‘world’ upon ‘world’ today. Walney is a place where they would toll our cars to if we illegally park on the street or certain spots in my neighborhood. I had my car tolled to there once, no twice, couple years ago. I had bad feeling about the place. At that time, I thought it was so far away. My girlfriend drove me there to recover my car. As I ran past it, the light in my head light up. That where this place is. It was just 3-4 miles down where I live and I alway thought it was on the other side of town. 3-4 miles is no longer part of my vocabulary for far.
Then I got to the Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy and I said, oh, this is where we go to the airport. There were many beautiful neighborhoods I saw. One was the Fields of Chantily. I said as went I passed by, I didn’t know there a residence behind all these commercial buildings and shopping centers. Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy is a busy street.
Boy, no one was staying at home at all. Like on my previous three runs, today was no different. Lee Jackson was full of cars zipping by. I bet half of them or even three quarter of them were not essential workers. We were just enjoying being out for after lock-in for a full week.
I never ran on Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy before. I know where it leads, but running is a totally different ballgame. Luckily the entire way was mostly paved. There is a part where if you are not careful you could fall into an uncovered manhole and a 15 foot ‘ravine’, but it was obvious. Just don’t run there when it is dark outside. There is a neighborhood where they have their mailboxes across the street from their house and I thought that is the weirdest thing. Normally, people put their mailbox on their lawn at the curb and not the otherside of the street.
I think by 8 miles, I got to my old neighborhood where I lived during my highschool years. I haven’t been back there except for couple races I did in that area. Again, I felt proud of myself to have ran that far. All these years, I always thought this place is so far to get to. You could say I haven’t really been back to explore around.
The Safeway store is still around. There are many new codominium. They started building those when I moved out. I swinged by my own apartment. It was sad the church Centerpointe Assembly of God is no longer there. The mall across was closed due to the coronavirus. That was a disheartening sign, to see the big mall parking lot completely empty. I only see such a sign in the past when there was a snow storm, even then, usually they would clear the lot of snow by the next day.
As I continued on the run, I swinged by Fairfax Corner. This is a newly developed area. A misnomer. It is in the middle of the city and they call it the corner. More like a corner store, but man it is not just a store. They cleared the woods, hundreds of acres of land and built the whole neighborhood up during my college years. This place is huge. I came here the last couple years for my 5k races. It is a new development area, high density, mixed zone development. This has been a hip word here in our area. Instead of separating commercial, business, offices, now they build everything into one gigantic place – mixed zone – constant traffic – always people. You have high traffic shopping in the center. You build parking decks and condominium all around it. And they have towering offices surrounding that. It is a whole world inside. Funny thing is there is no school, post office, police station, firehouse in sight. I always wonder where are the schools. They cram maybe 5000-10000 residents in the place and have no school. I’m sure they have done their environmental studies. But if you build it, people will come indeed is true. People really like the place. So Fairfax Corner is like that – a busy place. I saw a lot of people around as I passed.
I continued and headed for my gym, getting back on the Lee Jackson Hwy. Gym closed of course even if the sign says open 24 hours. Note, normally I would be in my car in this stretch because this section of the highway is not runner friendly. It has overpasses and cars going 60 plus mph. There is just a lot going on here. I hated this place even if I am in my car. Yes, lived here all my highschool years and drove this section to school every day. I was thirsty at this time for not bring my usual runner pack. I opened my yoplait-like slurp. It was still wasn’t enough to cure my thirst. Luckily there was a gas station ahead. I stopped there and brought a Gatorade. Yup talk about violating social distancing. Gas station is a high traffic area for the spread of the virus.
I reached the end of the Lee Jackson Memorial and it became Main st. It became Main St after all those crazy overpasses. There was a sign that says 1.3 mile to city center, (Fairfax City that is). I did not continue to the city center. I hated crossing that big street Lee Hwy. We have so many St naming after Civil War generals. It was like a six street intersection there because the four roads coming together at an angle. You have such weird streets at many places in the Northern Virginia area and they created huge traffic mess. All these years, you wonder can’t they straighten out the street? So staying on myside of the street, I turn right on Lee Hwy without crossing it.
This part of Lee Hwy was also new to me. I had never ran here before. There is not a lot of businesses on Lee Hwy. No residence either. There are, but they are all hidden behind out of sight. Luckily they have sidewalks for most parts. I guess this is where the wealthier residents live. It reminded me of being in the redwood forest as I ran through this section of the neighborhood. Surprisingly this part was where I had a lot of uphills to climb. They were not as steep as in DC, but they gave me a decent workout.
Lee Highway was shorter than I expected. I reached back in Centreville around at mile 18. I was disappointed that I still had a bunch of miles left. At this point I hit my first wall (extreme tireness). This is the worst part because when you hit the wall, only thing you want to do is to stop running. And usually my goal is to push to the end. Today, there was no specific end point for me to focus on. Instead, I had to plan on where and how I get in another 6-8 miles. I am familiar with Centreville. From one end to the other is only 2-3 miles. So there were not a lot of running room so to speak. It is like the airplane being out of fuel and you can’t land yet but keep circling around. That what I had to do.
I made a turn into Trinity Center. This is a business park / residential area as well, and has been recently built maybe within the last 10 years. I have been in there once or twice. I was surprised how big it is. It is unlike Fairfax Corner. It is ‘high density’ – well in fact all Centreville is high density, but it was not high foot traffic unlike Fairfax Corner. Centreville back in the early nineties still believed in zoning. We zone all our restarants to one location (outside) and residential on one side separated by a highway. The corporate center though is something new. There were like four business parks in there – parks is really just large parking lots without trees. Large parking lot is like Pentagon large. You only have these kind of lots outside of the city. Oh, they have water fountains and manmade lakes. I am pretty sure they are manmade because those were not around in the past. Horay! It is beautiful though. I love looking at modern business buildings (way better than what you find in DC cement blocks – brutalism).
Centreville has one hotel, well probally two. Springhill suite. I had always wondering who would stay there. It is a nice place, but we do not attract enough tourists here. Not until I saw the corporate parks it dawned on me. Yup for them.
By this time, I still had six more miles. I made a figure eight loop. It might seem small on the map but that was like four mile run. I ran to my sister’s house on the other side of Centreville – also I rarely traveled there. She lives on the south side. I hate crossing the big highway, Sudley Centreville Road. Luckily, no one was home – or they kept strictly to the social distancing as they should and didn’t open the door – good for them. I shouldn’t even be tempted to go there, you know. They (general advice) say no visitation for nonhousehold member.
Then I headed back home as the sun was setting. I was thristy again. Sorry for myself of not bringing my own water. At that time, I was struggling with my second wall, and it was worse than the first. I couldn’t stand up at the moment. It felt as if ants were crawling on the back of my legs. I stopped to walk for a mile or so. It was only mile 22. The legs got better after resting. I almost thought I couldn’t make it home. Two miles away and can’t make it back is unbelievable after having run 22 miles.
I got better as I sighted the street Stone Rd on top of the hill. I did not want to get 26.2 miles so I stopped at mile 24.5. It was pointless to go for two more miles just to say I ran another marathon this weekend.
Something can be said about geography and its significant to us as we attached meaning to it. I ran about and saw various places where I grew up in. I saw the place where they impounded my car, the place where I had my first car accident, then the place where I had my second car accident. Is there any happy places? They are places where it leaves a strong impression in me. I love my car as you can tell! Yes, it was very nolstagia when I passes through places I hasn’t been to for long time. Or places where they changed so much in the past few years like the Fairfax Corner or the Trinity Center.
Map of my run in a pizza slice shaped. The left edge of the triangle is Stone Rd/Westfield/Walney – the same road changes name three times. The top edge slanting down is Lee Jackson Memorial. The Bottom is Lee Hwy. Fairfax Corner is the little notch near where the top edge crossing the bottom edge. The figure 8 (with three circles connecting) is part of the Trinity Centre. In Centreville, word center really messes me up – it spelled centre here to match the name of our city.
Is it week 10 or 11 of my training? I lost track. Usually by the 10th week, everything fall apart. This time is no different.
I wrote this entry last week but lost it as I was about to publish and now finally found it again. How do you lose an entry? Ask WP. At that time, I didn’t know how, but now I found it was in the webpage folder instead of the blog post folder. So weird, you can’t move a post from one folder to the next. Does that make sense?
Bear with me if it seems to be the same stuff I wrote last week. I have short term memory.
total mile: 26
Monday/Tuesday rest: 0
Wednesday: 0
Thursday: forgotten. probably 0
Friday: 0
Saturday: 26
Sunday:0
It has been another crazy week. This week was worse than the last. I had ton of time, yet very little running done because of the coronavirus.
Now I don’t have a 3 hour commute (roundtrip) every day. It is almost a vacation I always dream about. Every day is a Saturday. Almost. Yet, the reality of being stuck at home is no fun. I didn’t get to do what I need/want to do. No one to blame but me, for being too obssessed with the news.
For running, I am doing the same route. There are tons of neighborhoods I can run to, but I have been sticking to running the boring same route of back and forth in front of my house.
By the way, our county finally closed all the public parks. We haven’t done so at the national level yet. It is getting there. They closed the parks for cars. There are parks I can still run to without driving there. Our quarantine enforcement in our area has no bite. There is no street closure. We do it in some places, but the idea is not to limit movement, but prevent people from congregate at a location. No one is being pull over by the police for violating the ‘essential’ travel only. That bother me when I look out at the street and see so many cars. Basically people still can go where ever and do whatever they want. That should be good for me, right?
Along with everyone, I just can’t wait to have it over with. On one hand, it seems impossible to get everyone following the quarantine order. The other hand, we have shutdown the city like never before. However, there are too many people deem themselves essential. It is a disease we don’t see affecting us immediately due to the long incubation period and the infected can be without any symptoms but still can spread to others, which many didn’t realize. It might bite them two or three weeks from now. We are not fighting today battle. What we do now affect in 2-3 weeks time.
So it’s supposed to last 2-3 more weeks according to the New York governor before it gets better. New York is taking the lead and all eyes are on them. Our area is now maybe a month behind them (4000 cases, to theirs 130000). NY seems to slowing their curve today. Our area is slowing a bit too, it is no longer doubling at every 4-5 days as before or even freaking every 3 days sometimes, so that is some good news, but it is too early to tell.
The cost of the policy to shutdown the state/country is huge. There is also a cost if we do nothing. Some states still do not have a stay-at-home policy due to the low count of infections in their states. There are some who question if it worth it. Mayor of New York, said yes. For each life saved is worth the economic cost.
There are some good news that a cure or vaccine might be possible. Hopefully, everything will be over when the summer comes around. Hopefully not too long, so we can all get back to work.
This weekend was originally planned to be a trip to Laurel Highlands in PA, Trip#3 to Pennsylvania, but with the stay at home order from our governor, it is not wise to run about. I am sure people of Pennsylvania would not be trilled to have me there either. Their trooper/park ranger might give me a citation for not staying at home. Our state is like theirs, out count of number of infected continue upward with no end in sight. They projected now that our state will peak by May 21. Truly no one know when it will end, but having a date is reassuring.
There are a lot of people still on the road – I am sure they all were making the ‘essential trip’ allowed under law. This is something I noticed during my run. It is not like during a winter storm when the whole city is truly in a lockdown. During a winter storm, everyone stay put, you don’t need the government to tell you not to go out.
Did I mention since yesterday, our state…no the CDC has issued a recommendation to wear face mask in public. It was kind of expected finally. Of course face mask offers protection, that is why doctors and nurse are wearing them. I know, we did not have enough face masks and PPE for the public (even they are hard to come by for the health workers) but that was no excused of not recommending general to protect themselves. I had on a self made one from a bandana during my run. How useful that is, is questionable. Still I think it was better than nothing. I was happy to see so many people started wearing them on my run! People do listen to the CDC. Well, mostly asians though, they have been stockpiling on masks! Ha!
So I did another virtual run just to get it over with. A third virtual run for the third week of being staying at home and for the third marathon being canceled. I did it this time for the Blue Ridge Marathon #runblueridge, which was to take place on April 18. A virtual run around my neighborhood is better than not running at all. So this weekend I woke up earlier. Ate (fueling they say like a car), cooked my dinner too and off I went. I didn’t charge my watch this time, but it was showing full or near full. The time was 10:58. I started my watch immediately and didn’t wait for me to get to what I considered a “proper” spot for the starting line. You know at the race, you line up, wait around, listening to the announcer giving the count down, a then off you go. I like to mentally set a place as the starting line. For the last two virtual races, I walked to our nearest fire station. No this time, I just took off the moment I stepped outside of my house.
Yes I checked my watch, making sure my watch is on and tracking. Very important. A virtual run is all about the watch data.
I ran two loops around the neighborhood going the opposite direction than last Saturday. Having ran the course before for other virtual races really helped. You generally know where each mile is (mentally).
All the cherry flowers were gone by now. There were still some on the trees but no where as pretty as last week. The weather indeed was fantastic this weekend. It was completely different. We have sunshine instead of the oppressive rain cloud.
I had on my home made mask over my nose and mouth and it was hard to breath, especially on a run. I was suffocating. Couple times, I felt like I was about to faint for lack of oxygen. I caught myself swaying. How do people run with a mask on? I told myself hang on, you will get use to it. Think of it as high altitude training. After a few miles, I could start breathing normally. It was still annoying but I knew I could run the whole race with the thing over the face. Yes, sipping water was a challenge, since I didn’t want touch the mask much.
I did not have many great thoughts like in previous run. I came up with several ideas for blog, but now I have forgotten them. Lack of oxygen hindered much higher brain processing. I observed myself at time I can only have a fragment of a thought here and there. I was swimming in various disjointed stuff flowing in and out of my head.
I finished my first lap, stopped by my house and fueled myself with Gatorade and snacks. Then off I went for the second lap. I didn’t feel great at all. The first few miles of the second lap, I had my mask off because I was drinking, and how glad I was to breath freely. Then I put it back in place and plodded on. The second lap was over uneventfully.
I did walk the last couple miles. This time I did not carry snacks on me and couldn’t refuel myself as I was being worn down. A marathon is still a marathon – hard, no matter how many times I ran one. Funny I was hitting the proverbial wall at mile 24 instead of much earlier. Then my watch started complaining that the battery was running low. OMG. I got to hurry. There were two more miles and I didn’t want it to die now, otherwise the run would not be recorded. I got to mile 25. Still a mile left. My watch was flashing, warning me that it was really about to die on me.
Decision, should I stop my watch now and save the data, or should I game it hoping to get to mile 26.2? Luckily, but this time, I felt like running again and running fast. Also a funny thing with me is I usually get a second wind. This was my kick. I kept looking at my watch until I got to 26.2 and stopped it. There was still about a mile left to my house, but I am not going for 27 miles today. A 26.2 is good enough to post to the marathon event.
I then stopped by the grocery store to buy some snacks and drinks, oh, I was thinking of Corona, the beer. A proper after marathon celebration. No, I resisted the temptation and went for a Powerade and coconut juice instead. And as I walked a mile home carry all the stuff, I felt stupid that I couldn’t drink while walking, both my arms were full with grocery. And if I stopped to drink, I wouldn’t want to take another step, so I was dying of thirst, while holding eighteen or twenty bottles of Powerade under my arm as I lumbered home. What a sight. When you were thirsty, you want to buy the whole store. I was a dummy. Why I didn’t want to buy just one bottle? It was more expensive per unit than buying in bulk. Yup, a dummy.
That felt like a real race though. After crossing the finish line in a race…you usually still have to get to your car and usually it is quite a walk. So this virtual race did not end at my doorstep but a mile away from it. I thought that was funny, the irony.
One great thought I had was on making decision for my life. Each step I took was like each day when I wake up. I made a decision for the past three plus or 10 plus years, to keep going and not look back. Ya, I could stop, but that was no solution. I would be stranded. I will write more about it maybe in a future post. I was glad the run is over.
Watch data. distance 26.21, time 5:29:44, elevation 801. A picture of my neighborhood: see all the parked cars, everyone is staying at home as they should.
In awe 