Let's go BACK to the Mall!

My second week of 75 miles went deceptively easy, considering I worked four of the days, whereas I only worked one day of my first 75 mile week. Not that the extra five miles is terribly hard, only about 33 minutes more throughout the week, but the whole effort is worthy of pause. I went to the store looking forward to a nine-mile jaunt through Northwest, but ended up getting much more. We ended up running around the Mall and Hains Point, but despite running some of the same route the day before, it was great to have a big group Saturday morning.
In honor of the Spiders, I wore my Richmond singlet under my t-shirt, but less than a mile into the run realized I had to be more public with my support, so I put it on over my shirt. To note, Matt Llano ran 14:37 to win the 5k with splits of 457, 442, 423, and Tim Quinn nearly PRed with a similar first-mile split. Unreal. Here's an interview with Llano on my coach's blog. To think, Hannay's 15:07 outdoors was noteworthy in 2002... It was also a homage to pretty much every running movie I have ever seen- the athletes seem to train in their uniforms. Why is Mac Wilkins, a thrower, running around campus with his Oregon singlet on in Prefontaine? Karl brought up a good point- it's good marketing for the program. It reminded me that Hampden-Sydney never gave us any paraphernalia with the the team or school name on it. It was just as well, because we were kind of embarrassing and it matched the way the school felt about us. I do have a t-shirt from the Parents and Friends 5k, which was odd to have a shirt for that but not for the team in general.
Karl also gave me another idea- charging to the front at the end of the run, to be the first one back to the store and represent my school well. I was in. What I didn't realize was how far we would end up running.
After a loop around the Mall, we headed down the west side of Hains Point, and kept going to the tip, despite being at 56 minutes at the cross road. For some reason I pushed ahead with Karl, not that it was a problem. The east side was now clear, so we returned up that side, and I kept pushing into the wind. Heading back on Ohio, the pack turned left when I was headed right, so I fell back a little there, but picked up ground. Once we hit the rock creek trails and I made the unfortunate decision to end up running through a lot of snow, I was much farther behind and soon would relent and forget about the finish, until Karl reminded me to go for it. I put on about a mile-long surge to the front, took the long way around an interchange under Whitehurst Parkway and kind of overcompensated for the extra distance. It felt good to be able to put on a burst, no matter how silly, after nearly an hour and a half of running. Jake Klim sprinted to catch up to me and I eased up, but again Karl's encouragement propelled me up the icy steps and across M street to the GRC.
We ended up doing a little over 14, so I would up with 80 miles this week. Oh well.
I'm liking the shorts-worthy weather...
In other news, I am into the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, and I'm pretty pumped about it.