lessons learned from our nation's capitol

first songs on the shuffle for 4/26, 4/29 and 5/2: can't remember, was delirious, "karma" alicia keys

lesson #1: for some odd reason, despite its phallic resemblance (or maybe because of it), the washington monument is my favorite.

lesson #2: dc'ers love their cars - and from the looks of it, probably more than their children, homes and food.

lesson #3: adams morgan is a very odd smorgasbord of people.

lesson #4: dc and i have a very hateful running relationship, and i don't know if i'll ever be able to find the love.

lesson #5: i <3 chicago.

got into dc last wednesday and decided to flip wednesday and thursday so i did 6 miles. it took for-freakin-ever to get to a place where i didn't have to stop every 5 minutes because of traffic lights. for some reason, i felt like hell the entire time. you'd think i was doing a tempo run or speedwork the way i was huffin and puffin.

thursday was a crazy, crazy day. i didn't stop having work stuff until around 8 p.m. so i decided to skip the run. i took friday as a rest day as planned...and then came saturday.

i figured, fresh day, fresh run. unfortunately, the 8 miler wasn't any better than the 6 miler on wednesday. in fact, it was worse. much worse. from mile 3 on, i felt like i was going to pass out. i made it to mile 5 and decided to buy a gatorade. i slugged half of it and then continued on with the run. at mile 7, i ran into one of the members of leadership from my job. did my best to smile and say hi and kept going. managed to finish the 8, but it sure wasn't pretty. i saw the man i ran into during my run later that day, and he said it looked like i had a good pace going. it took everything in me not to tell him that i was pretty damn close to puking all over his shoes.

however, i'm happy to report that today's run was fantastic. 6 miles and some change. according to my watch and my route, i was going sub-9 minute pace, which i have a hard time believing. therefore, i ran an extra 5 minutes just to be sure.

tomorrow: 5 miles