Meeting Week 6 at Fletcher's Again.

Week 6: The TMG will meet at 7:30 am at the same location for week six (August 18), Fletcher's Boathouse in DC along the Potomac River just west of Georgetown. You can only access the narrow entrance to the parking lot while driving WB (or NB, in other words, AWAY from Georgetown) on Canal Road.

Parking: As you drive into the Fetcher's Boathouse location, you can either park on the north side (the DC side) of the C&O Canal or, if that lot looks full, keep driving straight down the entrance way without first turning into the near lot and the entrance way will turn left and go through a narrow tunnel under the canal and you will emerge on the south side (the side closest to Virginia) of the canal in the large, overflow parking lot where the boat rentals are.

Meeting Point: Just like last week, we'll meet on the trail at 7:30 sharp to start running where the two paths, the C&O Canal Towpath (the dirt trail) and the Capital Crescent Trail (CCT, the paved trail) are side-by-side. It's a little over two miles to Georgetown from there on either trail, and a little under five miles to Bethesda from there on the CCT. Both trails have mile markers.

Last Week: Everyone did great! About 40 athletes showed up to run between six and eight miles in weather as fine as you' re going to get in August in the District--cool, slightly breezy and not sticky. Matt took his charges off towards Bethesda on an eight mile run on the CCT. I took the intermediate group on a seven mile run from the meeting point to the Key Bridge, back past the meeting point to and over the Chain Bridge on the C&O and back. Jeanne took another group on a similar run as ours only without crossing the Chain Bridge on a short trip into Virginia, achieving six to six and a half miles. Everybody's journey took from just over an hour to about eighty five minutes.

Next Week: Your coaches should e-mail you with recommendations during the week. The intermediate (Linda's) group will go eight miles on week six. We'll go on the C&O Canal from Fletcher's through Georgetown along the waterfront to Rock Creek Park, along the Potomac keeping it to your right to the Lincoln Memorial where we'll cross the Memorial Bridge using the north sidewalk and then cut down to the Mount Vernon Trail by taking a sharp right down the hill just past he bridge. The Memorial Bridge, and a little part of where we'll run in Rock Creek Park, will be on the Army 10-Miler route in October. From there we'll run to the Key Bridge, cross it on the south sidewalk, take a sharp right off the bridge to cut down to the C&O Canal Towpath (there's a footbridge over the canal down there) then run back to Fletcher's keeping the Potomac on your left. This will be 7.9 miles, you can run 500 feet past the meeting point if you want to run a full eight miles. Look here for next Saturday's route for the intermediate group.

In the meantime, run two to three times on your own, 3 to 5 miles each time. Try to go to the track workout the club puts on at W&L HS in Arlington every Wednesday evening for one of those runs. This is a terrific speed workout and very good for conditioning. I went last week and although the heat index stood at 99 degrees at 7 pm, I managed to run eight 400 meter turns around the track at about 1:37 each (at least a couple of the laps were much slower). Bring water.

The second half of the Program: We'll meet at Bluemont Park in Arlington off Wilson's Boulevard past Ballston but before Seven Corners for weeks seven and eight. A schedule of all twelve weeks of the TMG Program can be found here.