Running Tour Guide

I mostly train alone.  That's not entirely true - I mostly train without human company.  The only time I run with others tends to be my long runs or races.  Occasionally there are others at track, but my easy runs are accompanied mostly by my dog, Sammy, which means for most runs, I don't get the chance to have conversations.

This morning, I ran from Laura's place in DuPont with the intent of running a loop around Haines Point which would have given me a solid ten miler.  Within the first mile, a guy passed me on the left, but I kept pace, and we started a conversation.  His name was David and he was visiting from Sacramento.  He brought his camera with him as he had never been to DC before and was in town on business.  When I traveled to London, I did the same thing and try to remember to do it in new cities.  I even keep a list of cities I've run.

I changed my route to join David, which meant ditching Haines Point for the Mall.  As we went by various memorials and monuments (Lincoln, Vietnam, Washington, American History, Natural History, Capitol, Air and Space, Smithsonian Castle, FDR, MLK, Korean, Watergate), I'd point them out and he stopped to take pictures.  I ran with him up Rock Creek Park to the base of Calvert Hill and back to Laura's which gave me my ten.  We went faster than the 7:30 I hoped for, but a 7:14 pace won't kill my half marathon on Sunday.

He was a friendly guy.  37, married, 5 boys, and works for the utility company there.  He went to BYU and talked about how nice it was that Romney's Mormon faith wasn't really an issue.  We spoke about religion and politics too - a couple of my favorite subjects - and parted at the base of the Calvert hill.  It's not often I get to run with someone - so thank you David for the company and best of luck!