David's Trial of Miles...and Miles of Trials: Thank You Daylight Savings

Holy cow it feels nice to run in the morning and see the sunrise again! I have to run early on weekday mornings because I need to be back before my wife leaves for work, and for the last few months those runs have been entirely in the dark. Now that we set the clocks forward, it's amazing to watch the sunrise over the nation's capitol across the Potomac, and to feel the warmth on my body through the chilly morning air. I've felt energized and excited on my runs lately.

I did my first group run, and it was a Brooks Light Up the Night Fun Run at Pacers in Arlington. A Brooks representative gave out jackets, vests, hats, and a bunch of other nightlife gear to try out on the night run. All of the gear was extremely bright yellow or orange, and very reflective. I think the 30 or so of us looked a little goofy trotting through Arlington at night as a glowing neon sea of runners. The Brooks rep also gave out long sleeve running shirts after the run, which are actually awesome shirts, and also raffled off a few prizes. Best of all though, she brought beer! The Thursday night fun run at Pacers proved to be a wonderful experience, and I plan to make it a regular part of my training.

I'm not exactly sure what happened but my Saturday run was supposed to be an easy jog, and it turned into a 10K PR. I only planned to run 6 miles, but after feeling great running the first two miles around 8:00-8:30/mi I decided to bump it up to a 10K and see what I could do. I ended up blazing through the next few miles at 7:47, 7:42, 7:10, and a 6:40/mi pace on the last 0.2 miles. I ran a 48:45 10K giving me an average pace of 7:52/mi. That time actually beat my current 6-mile PR! I'm excited to see what I can do at the DCRR 10K Bread Run on December 2, 2012 now that I'm focusing more on speed work rather than mileage volume.

Sunday was also kind of a fun run. I packed the camera (Nikon D3200 SLR) and went out for a slow 10-miler, stopping to take pictures whenever the mood struck. It was a gorgeous day, and there were a ton of people out at the parks along the Mount Vernon Trail. Here are some of the pics that came from my meandering: