I Found Virginia

Very Hilly!

DC Roadrunners have a Saturday long run. Other groups, including one that starts from Georgetown, have Sunday long runs.

Looking forward to the school year, Sunday will be my one 'sleep in' day.

No need for an early morning run that day!

So off to meet the Roadrunners I went.

"Hmm. No metro on Saturday mornings. Maybe I should just run there."

Off at 6:00am to meet at 7:00am at the Iwo Jima Memorial.

Fitting: I've been reading Flags of Our Fathers.

Except, as usual, I got lost. Thank goodness I built in time for that!

"Excuse me....Where is....?"

Over and over.

Which didn't prevent me from accidentally getting on the highway near the memorial.

A little "oops!" and some serious two-way peering and some quick shuffle-and-jump and there I was, across the highway and near the memorial. Thank goodness there wasn't much traffic!

After accosting some more people, I found the meet-up for the Roadrunners.

Wow. Super organized. Loads of people - and, I found out later, that was only half of the Saturday morning runners, there being a 6:00am group, as well.

Gatorade and water to begin. They even had 'course maps' to distribute!

Wow.

I was quiet, just looking around and seeing who seemed to be there. A lot of very, very fit people.

All the women were super fit. I sucked in a bit to try to pass.

"Sarah?"

Yay! A familiar face! I had totally forgotten that a PPTC member had defected down to DC. He was part of this group!

Awesome.

We started off. I knew I had to keep up, even though I was feeling tired and was toting my water bottles because, while I had a map of the course, the best thing I could do with it would be to show it to someone I met and beg to know where in the heck I was!

So off I went.

Virginia is hilly!!!!!!!

Almost as hilly as Durham.

(I know that the Speedy Blonde will read this and laugh. Ok: it's not as hilly as Colorado. But I'm coming from Brooklyn, for pete's sake!)

I have no real idea where we went. But there were a lot of subdivisions, a lot of paved trails, some forest trails, two different Glebe Roads, the Custis Trail, the W & OD Trail, and the CCT trail that I was on yesterday.

It's amazing how much my energy picked up when I recognized where we were on the CCT trail.

Interesting how that works. It speaks to running or, at least, driving, the route of a race - something I (almost) never do.

We also had a WATER STOP, staffed by spouses of runners, during part of the route!!!!

With Gatorade! And ice!

I took some Gatorade and washed down half a GU with that.

Guess I don't need those water bottles as much as I thought!

In Georgetown, I re-thought trying to run back to my house and finished the run with my former teammate. He had kindly offered to give me a ride back and I'd be stupid not to take him up on it!

Thoughts for getting to VA on the weekends? Besides a taxi? I'm thinking Zip Car?

Because the shortest route today was 12 miles. That meant I ended up running at least 16, if not more.

I was planning on 12, tops.

My doctor will be mad. My legs and knees already are.

oops.

As a thought, I think I like running by peoples' houses better than running by museums. You can't see how people live running by a museum.

But the Lincoln Memorial was pretty impressive. I had forgotten how far away it was from the rest of the monuments.