Marine Corps 17.75K

I got up ridiculously early this morning to drive down to Quantico (about 35 miles away), which took me about 1.5 hrs this morning thanks to Beltway construction, to run the Marine Corps 17.75K (about 11.1 miles). Yes, that is a random distance--1775 was the year the Marine Corps was established, so that's where that came from.

This was the inaugural race of the 17.75K (by the way, it's the only 17.75K race in the world), so nobody really knew what to expect. It's part of the Marine Corps Marathon training series, which is how I heard of it.

Anyway, here's the course map:

So as you can see from the elevation map, there were quite a few hills. Fortunately, probably nine of the eleven miles were in the park, so there was good shade cover, which was definitely necessary. By the time I got back to my car (about 10:30), it was 85 degrees and rather humid.

Overall, slower than I wanted to run (1:52ish, which is about a 10:07 minute/mile pace), but I survived, which makes it the longest run I've done in over a year, and a good way to kick off my training for the Marine Corps Marathon.