MLK Commemoration

I went on a Martin Luther King commemoration run in the District this week so that I could stand in the presence of greatness, in the shadow of the towering, brooding Dr. King statue at the MLK Memorial on the Tidal Basin.  It's directly across the water from the Jefferson Memorial which is dedicated to our third president, a slaveowner who enslaved his own children that he had with his paramour, slave Sally Jennings.  (Far away, illuminated like two shining cities on the hills, The MLK Memorial on the left and the Washington Monument on the right.)

 
Enroute to the MLK site I ducked into the basement of the Jefferson Memorial to use its facilities (runners always know where there are bathrooms on their usual routes) and, strolling through the bookstore down there to catch another few minutes of warmth before I ventured back outside into the cold again, I noticed they sold little books of the US Constitution (it's not very long, even with all of the amendments included), and I asked the clerk how much the purchase of 53 copies would be so I could run across the Mall to the Capitol and deliver them to the Republican senators there currently railroading the rigged impeachment trial through the process in the hope that those 53 craven sycophants might read it for the first time.  The $20 bill I was carrying wouldn't cover the purchase so I couldn't save our country from sliding into a kleptocratic autocracy; always the wise guy!  (Reflections cast by the Father of our Country.)

I made it to the King Memorial a few minutes later, avoiding the ruined, silt-covered buckling footpath (the entire seawall is sinking and the footpath is often flooded in large stretches) by cutting through the FDR Memorial next door.  There I reflected for a few moments upon the King legacy, an uplifting bequeathal to us during my very lifetime time, and ruminated sadly upon how quickly and low we have sunk to as a result of a single foreign-assisted reckless presidential election cycle, an interference sure to be repeated later this year because the faux president and the Senate led by Moscow Mitch have, for whatever corrupt reasons compelling them, not taken a single step to assure that the chaos doesn't get even worse the next time.  (He had a Dream.)

Sad for my country, I finished my run albeit encouraged personally because although my pace was slow, the four miles went easily, my longest run in months since I cut back my mileage total way back in the fall due to a series of nagging leg problems.  Maybe, like my running health, my country will get better come November despite my anxieties.  (I have a dream that a better America is coming...)

So far...

After my health woes of the last 12 months, once I was fully healed by May, I started on the long and arduous road back to running.  I don't run with anyone anymore as all my former running buddies have moved away or in one instance, she doesn't return my calls. Life moves on, friends fall away.

I created a plan--run 3 times a week, paying close attention to distance (low mileage) and pace (plodding). Most running plans fail because of unrealistic goals, and I am closer to 70 than 60.

I started with a 1/2 mile per jog for two weeks, then kicked it up to 3/4 miles per run for two weeks with a "long" run of a mile. By June I had pushed past the I'm-going-to-die feeling each run and although my pace remained a mere plod, I found a "2d wind" late in runs, and I was up to a mile each run.  Most importantly I was still at it. 

I added a little weight lifting before and after and I stretched prior and subsequent to each run, a significant factor that I believe has kept me injury free so far. 

July brought further progress, 3 miles per run with a long run of 4 miles. I recently hit a weekly total of 10 miles. 

Unfortunately I developed a mystery calf injury last week and although I I felt like a sloth, I took the full week off and it healed. Monday I plodded two miles and I intend to do 3 miles my next run. So far so good.

I should have brought bread crumbs.

I arrived at Bluemont at 9 am for a 10 am hookup for a run with John.  Our schedules had gotten crossed.  Mine was written in ink in my weekly minder, his was entered in his outlook so his entry must have been correct, right?  By the magic of texting, I determined I had 35 minutes to wait so I went down the W&OD Trail EB to do a little exploring on side spurs.

I was lucky to get back 45 minutes later.  I'd headed off the trail NB on a little bridge over 4-Mile Run and was rewarded, as I expected, with a run up a steep hillside to a street at the south edge of an Arlington subdivision.  Running mostly NB on the curvy street, I expected it to intersect Wilson Boulevard shortly, which I would use to run directly back to Bluemont to complete my short warm-up run.  After many blocks, however, I asked a passing couple where Wilson was and they indicated it was still more than a mile away.  When I indicated I was trying to get back to Bluemont, they said I'd be far from there by the time I hit Wilson so they gave me a complicated set of directions which was a shortcut.

I was able to follow the directions, through a part of Arlington where I'd never been before, and emerged at Bluemont Corner, not Bluemont Park, which was still a mile away.  But at least I knew where I was now and I headed down a pathway that I knew would take me to the W&OD not far from where I'd parked my car.  But then I passed by another little side spur dirt trail that went down the hill into the woods sort of in the direction of the W&OD.  I couldn't resist.

The trail ran into the woods, past houses whose other sides must have been on a street not visible or accessible to me, deeper into the woods but always heading downhill so I figured I'd hit 4-Mile Run down there in the bottom of the gully somewhere.  Lost again.  I ran by a person walking a dog who indicated the W&OD was "just over there."  And it was.  I was still a mile away from my car, and I arrived back in the parking lot ten minutes later where John was waiting for me.  We went for our scheduled 2.5 mile run, which really was six and a half miles for me.  Running is such an adventure sometimes.