July 11th

Ran Glover Archibald again. Got out around 10:30am, temp was about 82 and humidity was "normal". Not great, but not the normal DC-in-July level.

As soon as I took off, I thought that this was was going to be bad. My legs felt dead and it was a little tough to breathe. Had low energy and just generally felt like everything was a struggle. I got pretty buzzed the night before at dinner with Ryan and Lissa and wonder if that's what did it. I think that that's what it must be, but don't really know.

I've been trying to remember my splits at certain points in the run, but the only thing that I can remember is the turnaround. I was at the turnaround at 28', almost exactly. The last run I did, I was there at 27' and that was the best time I've ever posted on this little track. Hmmm, maybe this isn't going to be such a bad run. The return is always a little faster than the out--you're basically running uphill the whole way out, downhill the whole way back. Ended up feeling a lot better on the way back than I did on the way out, and finished in 54' 24". Wow! I was thinking that this was going to be around 57-59' the way I felt on the way out.

Brought along my normal 50 oz of water with 3 scoops of PowerBar drink and ended up drinking most of it (much of it after the run, but not sure how much). I sweat a ton normally and this was no exception. I'm actually getting a little concerned that 70 oz of water on a 10-mile run may not be enough. To be fair, I'm drinking a lot of the water after my run, so hopefully that will be ok.

Next step is to get off to Rock Creek and run either the Valley or Western Ridge trails. I think that they're longer, hillier and somewhat more technical, so that will be a much better test both of my fitness and my hydration needs.