Christmas Tree Run 2019, Part III.

About two weeks ago I set up, upon request, a Christmas Tree Run around the Mall for today at noon, but that person couldn't make it at the last minute, so I went alone.  I had done a precursor run last week to scout out some promising locations already, like to Trump Hotel, here's how it looked today with a view upward towards the open glassed in ceiling.

A nice touch was a real person sitting in a chair by its base wearing a Trump 2020 hat, as though he was auditioning for a spot in the White House or maybe at Justice.  He had bought a bowl of cheez-its, after all.

Going across the street I viewed the beautiful tree in the Willard Hotel.  It always feels welcoming to stop in that venerable fabulous hotel.

I looked for the National Menorah on the Ellipse but I couldn't find it so I don't think it's been erected yet, although it's supposed to be lit in three days so maybe it'll be erected on that day.  The National Tree was memorable, as usual, especially with the Washington Monument as its backdrop.

Heading over down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol, I went over to the Hotel Monaco, the old Patent Office Building turned into a posh hotel, if you can call tiny offices with marble floors and granite walls converted into hotel rooms posh.  The hotel didn't really have a tree, rather it had a series of small lit evergreen trees which did create a holiday effect of sorts.

Nearby was the National Portrait Gallery which didn't have a tree but there were a series of Nutcracker figures outside in an outward sidewalk Christmas mart.

Continuing towards the east, I went by the beautiful tree at the Canadian Embassy.  Every year it presents the most beautiful outdoor tree on Pennsylvania Avenue, including the National Tree which is, in essence, a tree covered in a shroud which houses the ornaments, they are not hung on the tree itself.

The Congressional Tree was spectacular, as usual.  The 2019 Christmas Tree Tour over, I returned home.

Christmas Tree Run 2019, Part II

There is a lot to see in the District on a run at this time of year even beyond Holiday Lights.  For instance, a Giant Panda in the subway system, Washington is nuts about its Panda Bears, all gifts on loan from China, except for maybe the offsprings but I think even those might belong to China by the rules of exchange.  I was in a museum on my run and I listened to a loud exchange between the security guard and a man wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey about the relative suckiness of each other's NFL team and when it seemed to be escalating into acrimony, I offered my opinion that I hated the Washington Redskins myself (it goes way back to the Nixon years); the security guard looked at me and said, "Then why are you wearing their colors?"  I was inadvertently, having donned the long-sleeved technical running shirt de-juere (gold) and the best sports vest I had with pockets that sealed with velcro closures (crimson).  I'll try not ion the future to look like a running prop for the failed team of allegedly despicable owner (he allegedly is very litigious and allegedly sues anybody for anything as allegedly a big bad bully in court burying persons who badmouth him with legal fees) Danny Snider.  (It turned out the two men who seemed to be arguing heatedly were actually friends.)

Hanging art versus suspended construction along the Mall.

A beautiful carousel on the Mall, seemingly uplifting even while looking backwards to the dark days of the Depression when a Merry-Go-Round could bring a brief glimmer of joy and hope.

The Capitol framed by the majestic raised sweep of the uplifted curving Hirschhorn Museum.  There's a lot of rancor and anti-democratic action going on down there; it's sickening Republic-wrecking activity, purely money and power driven, thank heavens for the 2018 elections.

Christmas Tree Run 2019

Today was a cold but bright and dry day, perfect for going on my annual Christmas Tree Run on the Mall.  This year's run was a short one, only about three miles with lots of lengthy stops at the various sites; I took Metro to the District and here's the Christmas tree at the place I started from, inside the Smithsonian Castle.  I am so addled by old age though that although I carefully placed in my vest pockets a credit card and what I thought was my Senior Half-price metro card, when I ran to my local station from where I parked my car at the last free spot where it was free parking 3/4 mile away, when I arrived at the station I discovered I'd pocketed my lifetime free pass to National Parks for seniors instead of my Senior Metro card so I had to use my lunch money, a twenty-dollar bill, to purchase a regular metro card and thus spend twice as much on transportation, about nine dollars there and back.

The day actually started before that at my local blood donation center where I gave a unit of plasma, platelets and spun red blood cells (they withdraw the blood into a machine, spin it I guess, and return it about a million times until they get the amount of concentrated particles they want), a process which takes 95 minutes and is very boring as you just lie there on a gurney, hooked to a machine by a needle in your arm, and I whiled away the time by admiring the Christmas tree in the blood-draw center.  That was my 129th time donating blood or blood products (110 times of whole blood donations--a process that only takes about 18 minutes); how's your donation schedule going?  They like my blood because it's O+, a universal blood-type that can be given to anybody except persons with O- blood, which is the true universal blood type that any body can accept, and I get blood donor calls daily, almost hourly, from the Red Cross which I never answer (I give to Inova in Northern Virginia) and even, occasionally, from blood centers as far away as Cincinnati, where I donated a unit of blood once after a marathon in 2008 as I was passing through the airport (I have tried unsuccessfully for years to get myself taken off that list--but how can you yell at volunteers calling even from a thousand miles away trying to address a continual blood crisis?).

Once in the District I ran around downtown near the White House, stoping for awhile at the National Tree on the Ellipse, and then having a fascinating conversation at Pershing Park across from the Willard Hotel, which I then subsequently forgot to go into, where they always have a beautiful tree.  In Pershing Park (named after the WWI American Expeditionary Force's commanding general, Black Jack Pershing), a film crew was shooting the vacant mostly concrete park and IT-type guys were "digitizing" the statue of General Pershing so they could put a 3-D recreation of it on a WWI Centenary internet site (commemorating 100 years since the end of the war, only a years too late) because ground-breaking was going to be done later this very afternoon on a project to reconstruct the park to create an interactive site there where, now that ALL veterans of the war have passed on, the public can finally learn something about the sacrifices and heroic achievements of the Doughboys who were Over There winning the War To End All Wars.  I like to question people when I see things going on that I run by, I learned this is an ongoing project already five years old.

I went on from Pershing Park to the Trump International Hotel which was filled with eye-candy  exquisitely dressed mature women and fat-cats in natty dark business suits, but they always have a nice Christmas tree in there.  Then I ran past the Washington Monument on this stark but beautiful day, ducked into a couple of Smithsonian Museums where they have small but well-lit Christmas trees somewhere in the premises like at the Museum of African Arts inside the Enid Hauptmann Garden Plaza and ran to the Constitution Center in L'Enfant Plaza where my former agency is located and dialed the four or five persons there for whom I have numbers in my cell phone to see if they, impromptu, wanted to have coffee but everybody either eschewed picking up my call, or picking up a 202 (the area code for the District) number they didn't immediately recognize or expect or were busy or out.  So i happily had a guilty-pleasure late lunch of noodles and mushroom chicken at the Panda's across the street in the food court and returned home tired but relaxed.

Visitors

Visitors came to town over the weekend to attend a wedding last Saturday, and I spent an enjoyable few hours on Sunday wandering on the Mall with my nephew John while his girlfriend, Gudrun, went to a brunch with the happy couple after she had met me at a restaurant.  It's been rumored to me that I'll be seeing these two again next summer in Chicago.  (In from Chicago.)

Me and John took a Lyft cab (are they called cabs?) to the eastern end of the Mall so I could show him the Library of Congress with its underground tunnel to the Visitor Center at the Capitol.  That was the first time I ever took a Lyft, or an Uber (is that how you term it?), so progress is being made on my part as I claw my way into the 21st century.  (Garfield statue at the base of Capital Hill.)

Since it was Sunday, both buildings were closed, so we ambled down Capital Hill to the National Museum of Art.  There my visitor showed me something that I didn't know was there, the 15 foot blue rooster on its roof.  Cool!  (But is it art?)

I know art when I see it.  We saw Monets, Van Goghs and beautiful statues in there.  (Walkin' the dog.)

We walked through my favorite little garden on the Mall, which I call the Pocket Park but is actually the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden, which had Allium 'Pinball Wizard' Flowering Onions in bloom.  I love these globular flowers that appear for only a fortnight each year.  (It's a Pinball Wizard, got such supple wrists.)

From there we walked through the nearby Enid A. Haupt Garden, which I know as Katie's Park.  I used to run through there with a friend named Katie, who subsequently moved away, whose favorite route to the Mall was through there, just like my favorite route to the Mall is through the Pocket Park.  The entrance to the African Museum is off Katie's Park and we toured the museum, filled with beautiful nailless woodwork and carved ivory, a mostly subterranean venue I had never been in before.  (A fifteenth century hunting horn.)

We walked from there past the Washington Monument, viewing the kites flying overhead there and ended up at the World War II memorial.  John noticed my favorite part of of that monument, the "Kilroy Was Here" :> graffiti.  I explained to John from whence the slogan came and why it was inscribed on that monument.  (Kite chasing kite.)

Then it was time to go and I started giving John detailed directions on how to return directly to his hotel so he could check out on time.  He stopped me, telling me it was a "generational" thing, but whenever he heard directions from anyone he zoned out and as soon as the directions were over, he just switched on his I-phone to its GPS app.  I smacked my head, saying "Duh."

Flower Library

There's a flower library on the Mall, over by the Tidal Basin, near the Washington Monument.  Every spring it bursts forth with tulips shortly after the cherry blossom bloom.

This year the library bloomed spectacularly, as usual.  My sometimes-noontime running group ran by it earlier this month.

My running buddy likes to seek out the different flower amidst a group of similar flowers.  She calls them outliers.

There's always something to go see on the Mall.  DC is a great running town.

The World War One run

Last week a friend and I did a noontime run on the Mall in commemoration of the 100th year anniversary of America's entrance into WWI on April 6, 1917.  We started by chatting up another friend of mine outside my former workplace, who related to us the interesting story that he had a great-grandfather who won an Iron Cross as a German soldier in the Great War, and whose country showed its appreciation for his sacrifices by killing him and his family at a concentration camp during the next war due to his religion.  (Black Jack)

We ran by the Capitol where President Woodrow Wilson asked for and received from Congress a declaration of war against Germany, mere months after he won re-election largely on the slogan, He Kept Us Out of The War.  We stopped in at the Navy Memorial where I pulled up from its database the entry of my grandfather, a sailor in the Great War.  (An engine of the Great War)

We ran through Pershing Park downtown and stopped at General Pershing's statue there, depicting him at the Western Front as leader of the American Expeditionary Force.  Then we ran to the Ellipse, where we viewed the memorial honoring the 2d Division's service in the war, its men participating in the 3d Battle of the Aisne, Belleau Wood, the Chateau-Thierry campaign, St. Mihiel, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the Aisne-Marne offensive and the occupation of the Rhine.  (The Indianhead Division)

Running past the World War II Memorial, we gave it a nod as that worldwide cataclysm was a direct result of the harsh peace imposed at the Treaty of Versailles which ended the War To End All Wars, with its unsustainable war reparations and its festering War Guilt clause imposed by the victors upon the vanquished.  Finally we ended our four-mile jaunt at the World War I Memorial on the Mall, honoring the District residents who served in World War One.  (Over There)

Still Bursting Forth

It was an unbelievably mild winter this year, with many 60 degree days in February, usually our coldest, snowiest month, and early March.  It was the warmest winter on record and the springtime blooms started to come out early this year.

But then there was a sustained cold snap in mid-March, with practically the only snowfall of the winter, and freezing temperatures for a three-day period.  It was feared that 90% of the nationally-renowned cherry blossoms would be suppressed this year by the quixotic winter weather, since the pink-hued blooms had already started to blossom early, shortly before the cold snap.  (2015.)

Usually late March and early April is a time of riotous spring colors, allowing milling throngs of crowds on the Mall and around the Tidal Basin to enjoy the seasonal explosion of soft-hued colors.  Nature is hardy, of course, and there was a blossoming forth, to a subdued degree, of the diminished colors this past weekend.

I hiked around the Tidal Basin on Saturday, enjoying the muted springtime splendor, walking six miles, 12,003 steps, according to the Fitbit in our midst.  The admiring crowds were ever-present as usual and the colors, although not brilliant and bursting-forth as usual, were present in a sparser quality and worthy of their world renown.  (2017.)

Putin--The Elephant In The Room

Why did I march yesterday?  To protect our democratic institutions, because when they come under dangerous assault similar to what happened under the Nixon administration, the voice of the people becomes paramount.

"Truth--Not Twisted Tweets."

(Picture of a resting, watchful pussy cat with its claws showing.)  "Grab Back."

"Fascism--Still A Bad Idea."

Seven More Miles.

Early on the morning of the Marine Corps Marathon, I lay in bed figuring out what time my running buddy Leah might be passing by milepost 19 if everything went just right for her in her quest to break four hours.  That requires a 9:09 pace so I figured that nineteen 8:30 miles, if she passed the start line right when the race started at 8 a.m., would have her running by Seventh Street on Jefferson Avenue in the District on the Mall at the earliest at about 10:42 a.m.

At 10:35 that morning I was in running clothes at the agreed upon spot on the Mall at the nineteenth mile marker of the race, anxiously scanning the faces of an endless stream of runners going by.  It's hard to pick out an individual runner in such conditions because you can't stand in the roadway and let them stream around you, you have to pick one curb or the other and watch the entire street from the side.

The four hour pace group went by, a little clump of about thirty runners following two runners holding up signs saying 4:00.  No Leah, and as the minutes passed, I began to worry that I'd missed her.

It had been raining earlier but it was now dry and the day was heating up, with the temperature climbing through the fifties and the humidity starting to rise.  I discarded a cotton t-shirt I'd been wearing to keep warm while I waited but I was still overdressed with a long sleeve running shirt and a light vest.

About eight minutes after the four hour pace group went by I spotted Leah, running steadily at a good pace, by herself amongst a horde of runners.  She looked good for someone who had just run nineteen miles, but then she still had seven miles to go.

I jumped into the race and fell in beside her.  For me it was showtime, because for weeks at noon I'd been practicing running six-milers at what I perceived to be a nine-minute per mile pace.

I had practiced running fifty-four minute six-milers diligently because I sure didn't want to let Leah down and falter as the miles rolled by at a nine-minute pace and perhaps have to drop out earlier than at the last quarter-mile-to-go spot at the base of the last hill rising to the MCM finish line at the Iwo Jima statue in Arlington.  I lied a little to Leah right off the bat by telling her that the four-hour pace group was only about four minutes ahead of her, but she seemed completely uninterested in that and we didn't discuss it further.

I didn't want to discourage her by making it seem like the four-hour group was too far ahead to catch but she knew something that I didn't, that because of the crush of people at the start, she didn't even pass the start line until twenty minutes into the race.  And Leah knows that the steady pace wins the race.

The Commish, Part Three.

It had turned out that my agency's newest Commissioner, who was going to captain our entry into this year's 3-mile Capital Challenge race, was faster than me so her speed work was turned over to the fastest guy on the team who ran with her at least once a week and practiced 3-mile runs in the 24 to 25 minute range.  She needed to be encouraged to maintain a fast but steady pace at the start because she had a naturally strong finish at the end of those runs, capable of reverse splits once she had warmed up and caught her second wind during the runs.

I still ran with her, doing a weekday long run of four to five miles with her while she ran once on the weekend on her own.  In the limited number of weeks we had before the race to practice with this busy commissioner, who traveled frequently and could only run at odd intervals during the day whenever her schedule allowed it like at 3 pm or sometimes in mid-morning, that was the plan.

It couldn't have been done without Greg, of course, the Federal Tread Company's fast runner who filled in at those oddball hours on short notice and ran fast with the commissioner, training her in fast pacing. I enjoyed my long runs with her where I could keep up with her, talk with her about running and racing techniques and, generally, be as fast or faster than her at the end of those runs because her base was less than mine.

Age and its concomitant wisdom will have its limited advantages over youth and energy.  In the meantime I assembled the rest of the team, four fast male runners and the required female runner (the commissioner), one of whom had to be an agency head (the commissioner).  (A team from the last decade.  Captain of that team, Commissioner Rousch, is # 840 and Greg, the speedster, is between him and me in the center.)

The Commish

I head the running program for my agency as a wellness committee board member, and I'm responsible for assembling the annual 3-mile Capital Challenge racing team.  As always, our entry had to captained by a commissioner.

It was suggested to me to ask the youngest commissioner, who comes from an athletic background.  She's a former ballerina dancer who, although she hadn't run any races, runs two or three times a week to keep fit, and I took her out on a 3-mile run on the mall to see what she had.

She had no trouble keeping up with me.  We ran the three miles in 26:14, an 8:44 pace.

 The good news was she was indeed a runner and the bad news was I didn't know if I could keep up with her.  It looked like our run was pretty effortless to her, although she did appear to need a little coaching on pacing, especially at the beginning of the run because her finish was strong.

Barefoot Running

Barefoot running is the title.  No, I don't do it, my friend Markus does it.

He swears by it, something about how that's how humans ran back then on the African veranda.  Me, when I run with Markus, I'm in my broken-down Aisics but I notice the looks we get from runners running past, even those cacooned within their earbuds.

Markus called on Friday and I ran 5 miles with him, a tempo run for sure since he's faster than me.  It was good, probably the pace was in the mid-8:30's per mile.

Markus is a former, and infrequent current, running buddy of mine.  I worked hard to keep up, in my dotage.

Busy Times

I ran 90 miles in August, 102 miles in July and 110 miles in June.  I run 4 or 5 times during the noon hour on the Mall on weekdays and pick up any running days on the weekend to ensure that I run five times each week.

Usually I run with one or more running buddies but lately I've been doing a lot more solo runs because everyone at work has gotten so insanely busy (new management showing its mettle on the backs of its workers) and my weekend running buddy left town.  Oh well, we came into this world alone and that's the way we'll leave it too.

The last two days I've run alone, 6 miles around Capital Hill to around Lincoln, and 5 miles around the Tidal Basin to Lincoln going over the Washington Monument hill twice.  Once I settle into each run and my breathing becomes less ragged, my pace picks up to where it almost feels like I'm going as fast as I used to run in the old salad days mid-decade last decade, somewhere in the eights.

Weekends I always run alone.  That's probably a precursor to what I'll be doing after my retirement someday (did I already indicate what management at work is doing at the expense of everyone else there?).