Bridge To Nowhere

It’s been a busy week! So busy that I haven’t had much time to write, think, or accomplish planned workouts.  I have worked out, just not exactly on a functional Army 10 Miler training schedule. Most of my running was done with the stroller – it’s that or no run a lot of the time!

Monday I came back from an overnight business trip and took my 1-year old for a 4-mile run in the stroller. It is getting dark really quickly in the evening!

Tuesday I did a mediocre gym workout on the exercise bike, as I detailed in my Day In the Life post.

Wednesday was a rest day.

Thursday I managed to get to a barre class at lunchtime. Great workout!

Friday I was working all day – morning/noon/night – since I had a full work day and then worked a concert in the evening. I did my regular noon Pilates class and then at 6pm I snuck out for what was going to be a quick run. My favorite Security guard laughed at me as I procrastinated by the door of the building, fussing with my Flip Belt, my Garmin, my shoelaces.

Finally, I was out the door and it was a gorgeous evening. A little more hot and humid than I expected, not having seen daylight since early that morning walking to my car.

There are so many great things about running in Washington, DC. Like seeing rowing teams practice on the river:

And the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial peeking through into my view:

And the cool statues that you barely notice if you’re driving in a car:

And seeing tons of people running, biking, and workout out outside. Like this guy doing pushups on the stairs:

And all the people playing volleyball, rec football, and softball in the shadows of the monuments:

So I was running and I had no plan. I had my Garmin to know how far I was going, and wanted to get in at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise. So I ran along the river, cut around by the Lincoln Memorial, and then my route was largely dictated by whether I had the walk signal. This meant that I ended up with a really random route.

I found myself on the Roosevelt Bridge. It wasn’t a really great sidewalk, and the cars were creepily close to me.

But I had a pretty nice view.

My problem was this: I thought I might be able to finish out my run by going across the bridge, somehow crossing to the other side, and running on the other side of the bridge and cutting over to my building. But the sidewalk led to nowhere.

I needed to be on THAT SIDEWALK OVER THERE:

Or at the very least ON THAT PATH DOWN THERE:

I knew that my side of the bridge didn’t easily get me to where I needed to go – and I was out of time. I had to be on Concert Duty at 7pm and all the earlier procrastinating meant that I had to dash back to my office quickly at this point. So I just turned around, ran back on the same side of the bridge, and then had to cut through some grass and down a hill.

But there was no path on this side of the street either, and rush hour traffic was flying down the Rock Creek Parkway – no way to cross to the nice path. I slipped under the bridge on this narrow path.

I eventually found my way back. It was only a 3-mile run, but with stoplights and figuring out how to get from here to there, it took longer than the 28:22 running minutes my Garmin clocked. That last mile was the fastest, though, dashing back to work!

Mile 1 = 9:27/mile

Mile 2 = 9:31/mile

Mile 3 = 9:21/mile

As I mentioned, it was hotter and humider (yes that’s a word now, I just made it up) that I had expected so now cleaning up for work also took longer than planned. I can’t work a formal concert like this!

Through some magical powers, I managed to transform myself into a non-smelly, non-sweaty Concert Duty Manager and all was well. Not such a great hair day, but I can’t have it all – I set the bar low and settled for not-stinky.

I got home after 11:30pm and had a very early morning workout to get to. More on that tomorrow!