This was a nice way to kick off the day. The charity benefiting from the run is Cure Autism Now - they raised over $141K with this event - not too bad!

Seeded myself at the back as usual and finally the gun went off about 8:10. Seemed to take at least the first 1/4 mile for things to shake out - lots of bumping and tripping over each other at the beginning - mildly annoying but no big deal in the end.

The course runs through a neighborhood in Potomac, MD. There is no blunter way to say it - this is where the rich folks live. It's really pretty, no cookie cutter McMansions here. Lots of different houses to look at along the way. First mile was fairly uneventful, but it just seemed to keep getting warmer & warmer. Just after the first mile, all of a sudden a couple guys come running from the opposite direction like their shorts are on fire. All of us slow folks are to the right and they're coming down on our right and we nearly get mowed over. Someone realized they were the leaders coming *back* - so we're hollering to everyone behind us to get to the left to get out of their way.

Right around mile 1.5, someone was either doing a backyard pancake breakfast or I was having olfactory hallucinations, but all I could smell was maple syrup. Now, I love a good pancake breakfast, but at the time, it really did NOT smell good at all. Fortunately, we passed through that area fairly quickly and finally hit the water stop near mile 2. I wish they'd had it a little closer to the halfway point with the heat, but at least it was there!

I slowed down a LOT on the third mile. I was just plain old HOT. Fortunately, some of the residents had been kind enough to put out the sprinklers in their front yards, and let me tell you - that sure felt good. I was still maintaining an overall sub 11 pace so I was happy. I would like some award for restraint at the 2.5 mile mark where I passed someone who was giving his son (not even 10 years old) a hard time about his running form. Way to suck the joy out of it. I couldn't help but entertain a passing thought of an unforuntate incident resulting in his being tackled and ending up in someone's yard, but I resisted.

Came up on the mile 3 mark and the volunteers are telling us it's all downhill - AND THEY'RE RIGHT! Seriously, there was a short, flat stretch right after the milepoint and then totally downhill. What a fun way to finish - you can let gravity take over! Couldn't help but totally kick it into high gear for that and passed at least 3 people on that last .1 mile.

Not a thing - I really enjoyed myself.

Grabbed some water and walked around for a couple minutes, then went and cheered in the rest of the folks.


The heat probably didn't help a whole lot, but I don't know if I can really blame it, I'm kinda slow to begin with. :)


It's a good 5K that goes through a nice neighborhood. Plenty of volunteers and the course was well marked. Lots of food at the finish, including pizza.