Following the airing of the US Marathon Trials (spoiler warning!), I found myself without a team in the playoffs, a little bored, and in need of a run. On the downside, it was dark and 30 degrees. Whatever… that’s running.

After about 20 minutes of prep, I was double-layered from head to toe, had my credit card, a metro card, my phone, a gel, and no plan other than to stick to the Orange Line and ride it home when I was done. I haven’t run more than nine miles (and that was only once… other than that, maybe six) since I fully gave into my injury in late 2009; I didn’t expect to make it much past Rosslyn.

So I set out. Less than a mile in, I had to ditch those stupid iPhone headphones (I gave them a shot since I was wearing a headband and my usual sports headphones don’t work with them) and take a leak. Not an ideal start.

Once I got going again, I hit a groove. Five miles in, I was approaching Georgetown with my sights set on the running store. While my legs felt great, my nips were burning something serious… I NEEDED SOME GLIDE. Unfortunately, they were closed. Jogging around to a few other stores in the area, I finally sourced some, lubed up the ole chesticles, and was back in business.

– Sorry for the pic quality and goofiness… very tough to take a blind photo of yourself. Yes, iPhone has a front-facing camera, but I needed flash and that’s only on the back one. I was not being picky with my poses… Just giving Heather a live tour of my run, which at least she’s lying about having enjoyed 🙂

From Georgetown, I followed the waterfront, passed the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial [pic], the Washington Monument [pic], The White House [pic] (where I was yelled at for not running on the sidewalk and where I also noticed for the first time the countless blacked out random vehicles in the parking lot), the Capitol [pic], The Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and finally down to RFK Stadium [pic].

I ended up doing some looping at the end of the run to make my GPS say a perfect 13.1 miles run, but I did miss a couple of blocks with my watch stopped so 13.25 is more likely. Average pace was not exactly blazing as it was just a nice, fun run, but I have to be pleased with how easy a 1:49 (8:20/mi) half-marathon was.

My hamstrings feel good, my legs are pretty beat in general, but that’s natural. I’m very hopeful that 2012 will be a great year of progress runningwise.