Look! I Just Got Passed Again! And Again!

I rolled this morning around 5:30am.

"Maybe my calves will feel better!"

They did, a bit. What they didn't do was become magically springy.

I met the DC Capital Striders group at Staunton Park in NE DC. We ran faster than we did the last time I ran with them: the woman who was slower wasn't with us.

And I was running slower. It felt ok but I didn't want to go any faster. And we weren't going that fast.

Again, thanks to some serious chatters (and I mean that in a good way: great chatters are invaluable on a run), the run with the group passed pretty quickly. Plus, it wasn't very far. Last night, I ran 9 miles with the group and then 1.4 by myself.
This morning, I ran only about 4 miles with the group: down Massachusetts to RFK, around RFK and back up East Capitol back to Staunton Park.
But, even by the end, my calves felt leaden.

And I still had more to go. Here's where, maybe, I should have just gone home.

Because I did run another 5 miles, which, added to the 4 and the mile I ran to get to the park, gave me the 10 I wanted.

But the solo part down the Mall, around the Washington Monument, and back around and up the huge hill on Constitution to 1st NE and back up to Massachusetts and home, that was pathetic.

Oh, I ran pretty much the whole time. (I had a cramp on the way back and walked for about 2 minutes.) But I was getting passed by almost everybody.

More particularly, I was getting passed by Joe Regulars with beer guts.

Beer guts.

And my legs/butt were tired enough that my left knee started hurting because of a change in stride.

Fail. Not epic, but Fail.

Should I go on the Georgetown group run tommorrow morning? They say that they are going to average about 8 minutes/mile.

True, I used to be able to run that for 20+ miles. But I can guarantee you I was not able to run that pace today.

So, meet people or be conservative?

Hmmmmmm