I didn't know I was going to run this race until the previous afternoon. If I had known, I probably wouldn't have gone out so hard on saturday morning (or thrown that house party saturday night, incidentally). But sometimes these are the best races! I got up at 6:00 after getting mimimal sleep, metro'd to downtown DC, grabbed a bib from a friend (some 15 year old girl named Abigail couldn't compete and gave me her number) and hit the asphalt. It was a really cool run that (needless to say) weaved through the cherry blossoms of DC around all the monuments etc. I've heard there were upwards of 10,000 people there (second largest race in thea area), which was quite evident in the tight packing of runners. I had to get off and into the grass for most of the race in order to maintain the pace I wanted (given my circumstances, I was shooting for 8 min miles, which I achieved). I don't know my exact time, because I didn't start at 0:00:00 due to the large group of racers (in fact, I was still in the port a john long after the gun went off, and I certainly wasn't the last one) but I kept track between miles and they were all around 8:00. I didn't take this race all too seriously (obviously), which made it a great segue for me to get back into the scene in this part of the country. Lots of fun to be by so many happy runners!! Then i ate lots of eggs. Lots and lots of eggs. | 