This morning I left the house at 6:30 and headed to the Jefferson Memorial. I parked at the Tidal Basin just after sunrise. I set out with an iPhone, a goal of nine miles, and no time limit.
I reached my goal, and added an extra two miles just for the fun of it. It took me three hours, though! I stopped to take lots of photos, and even I took a leisurely stroll through Arlington Cemetery halfway through the run. I suppose in theory I am training for the Army 10-miler next month, but I’m using a pretty loose definition of “training”.
I might already be fit enough to run 10 slow miles in a race, but I’m too ADD to know for sure. Instead of focusing on pace and distance, I find myself focusing on sun beams, flowers, interesting people, and tourist landmarks. Oooh, look at that ray of light hitting that adorable bird on a statue! Must take a picture!
OK, so I’m not a hardcore runner by any definition. But I’m proud of the distance I covered today. And even better, my tourist jogging combines my three favorite hobbies: running, photography, and sightseeing. What’s better than that? I even get to listen to dancey pop music while doing it. Perfect.
Here’s my new buddy. I named him Mortimer. He and I sat together for about five minutes this morning at a dock at Lake Newport. Does’t he look like a cartoon character? I couldn’t believe that he let me hold my iPhone a few inches from his face to get this picture.
Sitting there in the morning sunshine with my buddy Mort was blissful, but the rest of my run was tougher. I set out at 7am for my weekend long run, and it was already a hot steam oven. The highs here in the DC area have been around 100 lately, and today’s humidity is especially intense.
We had a brutal storm Friday night, with winds up to 79mph here in Reston. Mike and I are so lucky to have power, because it seems that almost everyone else in the mid-Atlantic is out. My parents are staying with us in our A/C until their power is restored.
Today’s run gave me a chance to see some of the storm damage. If you enjoy looking at blurry iPhone pictures of broken trees, this is your lucky day!
My alarm chirped at 5am this morning, and I was out the door before sunrise. I decided that I was going to treat myself to a Saturday morning of tourist jogging. I spent two and a half hours running around DC, taking pictures of all the cool stuff that I encountered. 10 miles and 177 photos later, I came home to my boys with lots of stories to tell.
Today was my first double-digit running day! I stopped to take so many pictures that my pace was a comical 16 min per mile, but who cares. I did in fact run the whole distance; I just stopped a lot to enjoy all the interesting things along the way. I loved every minute. I think my running style is more like moving quickly between photo opps than actual running. I only wish I could run with my real camera instead of my iPhone. But even a camera phone can make me a happy photo runner.
This picture from the White House is my favorite of the day, but I saw lots of things that made me smile today. How did it take me 37 years to figure out that getting up early and doing cool stuff is more fun than sleeping in?
We had the most perfect weather all weekend, with temperatures hovering around 75 and low humidity. On Saturday I spent almost the entire day outdoors, which is how it should be on a day like that. I woke up early and began my perfect day with my longest run of all time. I did nine miles along beautiful trails, and had so much fun that I just didn’t want to stop.
I ran six miles with Danny in the stroller today! That was a huge accomplishment for me. Actually six miles of running is a big accomplishment even when I don’t have the stroller, so this is massive. The best part was that I genuinely enjoyed running with the stroller, even though I always assumed I’d hate it. I felt like some kind of Supermom Megawoman when I was done. Evidently Danny wasn’t impressed. I bored him right to sleep.
For the record, I did walk about half a mile of hills, and we stopped halfway through for a playground break. But still it counts! Go me!
