It was hard, but boring for readers

I waited all day for it, to run my third time for the week to finish out my weekly running.  Four miles to top out the week at nine miles.  I went out at 4 pm when the sky was overcast and the breeze was up, hoping that would enable me to put in a sterling run.

I went out WB on the W&OD Trail where there are tough hills after the first mile surmounting the overpass bridge over I-66 (both directions).  No bicyclist whizzing by me, wandering in my 4-foot WB lane, ever announced their presence as they silently passed me, I hate that, at 25 MPH you could kill me if in my fog of fatigued flushed running, I lurched leftward two feet.  Going out the breeze was up and the sun was behind clouds and I reached the two-mile turnaround point feeling like I was coming back.

On the return trip the sky cleared and the sun beat down mercilessly upon this particular stretch of the 40-mile asphalt ribbon that is the W&OD Trail snaking through Northern Virginia because Asian invasive vines have killed every tree along its first 20 miles. These non-indigenous plants will kill all the shade along the trail's entire length in the next 10 years, a backward return for the Columbian Exchange.  It makes running on the W&OD in the summertime a real slog.

I surmounted the brisk hill coming back without reducing my slow shuffle to a walk, but then I partook in two 60 meter walking water breaks to quell my racing heart, and stopped for a minute to watch a taped-off crime scene just off the trail where the dozen Fairfax County police units I observed on my run, parked at vantage points along the way or cruising slowly through the area were obviously looking for someone in a vehicle.  I was exhausted coming back to my driveway after my "long run" of four miles, but felt that despite the glacial 13-minute per mile pace, I had proceeded apace in my comeback to running.  And I lost a pound overall.