She Broke Two Hours.

My running buddy Leah, a co-worker and friend, runs at noon with me two or three times a week.  We both came back to running from long layoffs due to injuries in 2011 and have worked diligently since then to get back into shape and maintain it.

I was always faster than her, by a lot.  Before my layoff, where I put on a lot of weight, Leah and I wouldn't run together except on certain occasions like, say, an evening Holiday Season Festive Lights run from work.

That was, Back Then.  Now she's faster than me and makes me work to be able to even hang with her on our noontime runs.

I saw this coming while we were training for the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon in mid-September last year and suddenly I was seeing nothing but the back of her on hills and I couldn't catch up, and on the flats too unless I made a conscientious effort to get even with her and stay there.  She posted a 1:50:59 at that race, a huge PR of over 20 minutes, and I came in at 1:54:53, my second slowest half marathon.

Tis the Season

I am co-director of my agency's Wellness Committee. I direct its running program, taking the Hare Group out for a noontime run on the Mall once a week. I have done this for 130 straight weeks now. Three or four times someone other than me has led the run when I was away. Here is a picture of M and I on a recent snowy Hare Group run. I am the hatless one.

There is always a morning run on the day of the work holiday party. Here is the Holiday Run from 2005. I am on the left, with C and M. It was cold that day. M beat me that year in the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler for agency bragging rights. In 2005 I went one evening to Union Station and ran the Christmas Light Run along the Mall to the Ellipse and back to view the decorated trees along the way. I ran into Bex on that run, and met NBTR and Nancy Toby and Jeanne afterwards. It was the first time I ever heard the word blog. Jeanne explained to me that it meant web log. Here is a picture of me in front of the 2005 National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse (photo credit Bex), followed by a picture of Bex in front of it.

Here is my Christmas tree in 2005, set up in my middle child's room. He was 17 then. Although I had plain vanilla visitation and they lived less than two and a half miles away with their Mother, none of my minor children had been to my house in more than two and a half years by then. But that's another story called Modern American Domestic Law. You don't want to hear it, believe me. It is a Grinch's tale, and Tiny Tim dies in the end every time.

Last week on the morning of my work's holiday party, I led the Hare Group on a version of the Christmas Light Run. I called it the Holiday Light Run for obvious reasons. First stop was the Peace Officer's Memorial Tree in front of the DC Courthouse. The little decorated tree behind me in the picture was planted a few years back in memory of two DC officers killed in the line of duty that year. God bless them (photo credit K).

K and I ran on this beautiful morning to the Ellipse from there and viewed the National Christmas Tree in all its decorative glory.

Then we ran around the Ellipse to view the National Menorah before running back to our agency (photo credit K).

Afterwards I went up to Union Station to snap a picture of the Christmas Tree inside there.

Merry Christmas everyone, and have a safe and happy holiday season.