A Little Noontime Run

I emerged from my work building near Union Station at noon in shorts, shoes and a long sleeve shirt under a wind shirt.  It was cold going to work yesterday morning but the sun was out, the wind had died down and it was warming up.  Three office mates joined me and we set off down New Jersey Avenue at a rapid pace.  Everyone was running really well in this wonderful running weather.

Half a mile later we turned up Capital Hill and achieved its summit.  We were only doing three miles since everyone was busy at work so we threw a large hill in early to get our juices flowing.  As the sweat started to roll down my forehead and run into my eyes, midway up the incline I stopped to strip off my wind shirt, which I carried the rest of the run.

The buds were beginning to appear on trees, the tourists were out and we had to engage in a lot of defensive and darting running to get by the throngs of people on the broad sidewalks in the long block between the Capitol and the Supreme Court  Building.  The little decline and incline paths that lead down to the underground  Capitol Visitor's Center were blocked off with police tape so we couldn't take those two little hills so we crossed over to the east sidewalk where there were less clumps of people.  I wanted to do the stairs on the Library of Congress but a policeman waved us away.  When pressed as to why we couldn't go up those stairs, he explained that the POTUS was having lunch in the Capitol and would be emerging soon and we had to keep moving and couldn't take our customary little diversions that day.  The doomed charm offensive, you know?

We circled around the Capitol by pounding down the hill on Independence and ran by the Arboretum, the Indian Museum and past the Smithsonian buildings.  We cut through the little pocket park between the African Museum and the Castle to the Mall and we circled the Carousel and started our return to work by cutting across the Mall diagonally towards the Statue Garden.  Running along the backside of the FTC Building we achieved Pennsylvania Avenue and ran by the Meade statue by the federal courthouse.  We ran over the little hill in front of Labor and we ran down the little restaurant row besides Labor. 

A half mile down First Avenue completed our journey and we arrived back at our building across the street from Georgetown Law just as many of our other workmates were getting back from their lunches or carrying containers of food into the building to eat at their desks.  The four of us did about three miles in about thirty two minutes, including stops at red lights at busy intersections and pace-killing interference from the crowds of people around the Capitol.