I am still catching up on DC running. Saturday was a massive conference day with my paper scheduled in the afternoon and 3 other panels I wanted to see. Luckily though they all fell in the afternoon and early evening so I was free for a little bit of parkrun tourism. We headed out to the Roosevelt Island parkrun. We set off early to allow time to figure out the travel. We took the metro from Union Station and it was actually quite straightforward. We arrived early and everyone there was really welcoming and friendly. After a briefing that included a welcome to some new US parkruns and a photo we finally set off.
The course is lovely. It’s on a trail – easy running trail, nothing scary and for the most part in shade which is very welcome in DC heat and humidity. After a shortish section of trail there is then a section of boardwalk which is quite nice to run on but could get slippery if wet I reckon. After that it’s more trail. You then run a little loop and back along the boardwalk.
We settled in at the back of the pack and I felt pretty good. Just as I was sarting to find it quite hard we passed a woman who then joined us. She was called Julie and was pregnant with her first child. She said she found it much easier running with us and we all settled in together. Shortly after we picked up Sarah who was at a different conference in DC and from Stevenage (I think) and who was struggling in the heat. The four of us chatted and plodded along and kept each other going until the finish. Once we’d settled in like that and I was encouraging others the whole thing felt so much easier. That was a very enjoyable parkrun indeed.
We didn’t run on Sunday and then on Monday, before we left DC, Kath wanted to show me the FDR and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorials. I also wanted to do the whole ‘Captain America’ scene running along the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. So we left the hotel early and ran down towards the National Mall passed sights which were now very familiar. The Capitol behind us, the Washington Monument in front.
Then we kept left and made our way towards the tidal basin. It took about a week to cross the road to get there but once there we ran along the water to the Jefferson Memorial which was lovely and quiet with just one or two other people lingering. The sun was coming up giving the Washington Memorial and the White House a lightly eerie feel.
From Jefferson we ran on to the FDR Memorial which is very well done. In order to see it properly and also because it would have felt odd and disrespectful we walked through it, took some picture and chatted about our, admittedly rather too limited, knowledge of US history and politics.
Then we jogged on to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial which is also very well done. Again we walked through, read the quotes and lingered a few minutes to feel the sense of history. The sense of history stayed with us as we walked around the World War 2 Memorial.
We ran along the reflecting pool which had been mostly drained so was really just a reflecting puddle with paddling pools left out for the ducks. We stopped for a while at the foot of the Lincoln memorial to watch a group of marines doing a practice for the honor flight ceremony taking place that afternoon. Then we ran along a little bit of the reflecting puddle on the other side and past the Vietnam memorial and Vietnam Women’s memorial.
After that we jogged our way around the last bit of the basin and then headed back towards the Mall via the White House and up towards the Capitol and back to the hotel. It was getting warm now and after the stop/start of the Memorial running I initially found it hard to get going again but then I settled in and we actually managed a good run of traffic lights too not having to wait. After just a little over 7 miles we were back at the hotel and ready for breakfast.That was our DC running. A great way to see the City.
poorly cat. We finished his course of antibiotics but if anything her was worse – so back to the vet it was and this vet felt a mass in his tummy that shouldn’t be there. We put pretty much everything on hold, nursed Ernie for 48 hours and then took him in for surgery. Two big lumps were removed from his intestines and then the silly little bugger wouldn’t eat at all. It took us another 2 days to tempt him. Running was – unsurprisingly – hit and miss. I managed 5.5 miles on the Wednesday before his surgery but then nothing until the following Tuesday.
On the Monday though I did do something running related. I went for a counselling session to talk about the running meltdowns I seem to be having on every long distance run. It was really useful to chat things through. I can’t even recall the detail of our conversation now but the upshot is that I am probably just putting too much pressure on myself and that I have internalised some of the objective measures of ‘good’ running such as pace even though I would logically (and rightly) say that pace doesn’t matter and that #myrunmyrules is the mantra to run by. I felt loads better after that chat.
I didn’t make it out on Thursday and on Friday we flew to Hamburg early in the morning. Very early. We had a lovely weekend staying at Dad’s, wandering round Hamburg a bit, seeing Cirque du Soleil’s Toruk and getting a couple of runs in. These were good runs in the real sense – not in the pace or distance sense. They were good because we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On Saturday morning we set off from Dad’s flat and went through residential streets basically in a straight line until we hit 
on Jungfernstieg and getting the bus back. We’d just missed the number 5 bus which was the most direct route and while waiting for a bus for a whole 6 minutes might be nothing here, for the busiest bus route in Europe that just seemed unacceptable so we jumped on the number 4 instead. We then had to get off earlier than anticipated because roadworks meant the stop we wanted was out of action – that did give us the chance to go through Kath’s favourite and undoubtedly best named tube station in the world – Schlump.
A little while later Kath said she felt better and would like to run so we got ourselves sorted and got the bus out to 
Anyway, I digress. We ran past the site of my first ever sporting accident (hm) and chatted away, stopped for pictures and looked at the autumn colours. It was stunning. We made our way past the museum of Hamburg History and looped round the end of the park before doing another little loop just for fun so we could run on a little trail and cross some stepping stones. Then we looped randomly round the gardens stopping to spend some time in the Japanese Garden with stunning colours. Then we hopped on the bus back, had some food and later drinks with the parentals. Monday we flew back home.
being home for 2 weeks I am still not sure how I feel about it really. It’s the place where ‘the State’ meets aboriginal culture and can’t cope so throws some tourists in for good measures. It feels like a microcosm of something although exactly what I can’t quite put my finger on. After sitting on a minibus for most of the previous afternoon, getting up and heading out the door for a little run felt both alien and exhilarating. We plodded along next to the river bed – the sandy dry river. It hadn’t rained since February and there was no water to be seen. We had a little cheer squad of parrots in a couple of places and as the sun climbed so did the temperature from a pretty cold few degrees when we set off to a pleasant warmth in the sun by the time we got back an 40 minutes or so later. It was good to be moving again.
Sydney was great for running. Our hotel was in a perfect location, close to the opera house and then the botanical gardens. We kicked off our Sydney running with a 4.5 mile plod across the Harbour Bridge and back down to the opera house and into the gardens. A proper tourist 
run with photo stops and stops to look at things. I struggled to get going a bit but it was fun. Running across the bridge was a very tourist thing to do (and possibly a commuter thing to do, too) and the views were great but in terms of running, it’s not actually that nice – it’s noisy and polluted! The climb we did a few days later was fabulous (and a little terrifying) though.
really (not) a runner 