Day 6 - parkrun and Botanical Gardens

Today was Saturday morning, which meant I was escaping off to do a parkrun. I managed to do one last year and since then another run has starting in DC, taking the total to 4. parkrun is still very much in a beginning phase in the US and is very small scale compared to the UK.

I hadn’t got any breakfast from Wallmart this time in the hotel room like last year. Therefore I had to stop by the station to be assured that there would be someone to get some food. I left the hotel room about 7:30am. It was still fairly cool, I think about 18 degree Celsius and cloudy. The station was quite and I had another pot of cinnamon and apple yoghurt  and grabbed a brownie to have later.

I set off on a slow jog over to Anacostia park which is on the south side of DC. This involved going over to the Capitol building first which was direction opposite the station. Once I got there, I was greet by barriers and police this time and had to be diverted around the perimetered of the building. I would late realise that due to the Kavanaugh confirmation there was prostests planned for later on.

I had a fairly easy route to take once around the Capitol building, straight south along the road. I was taken underneath a motorway and alongside the Washington Nationals baseball park. I was surprised that even a block from the Capitol building that the landscape became quite run down and unkempt.

Once I got to the river, I crossed the bridge Frederick Douglas memorial bridge which was just a highway with a small footpath alongside. I had checked in advance I got get over here as you can’t take for granted pathways in the US. Over on the other side it was clear where the Anacostia river trail was and I followed the path down to find a police HQ building I had been told was the start. I actually arrived about 08:30am and found a guy called Tyronne setting up.

Last week there were only 14 runners on this course so I had a bit of a wait until a few more people started to show up. I had offered to stay after I finished to help give out the finishing tokens. Eventually about 20 people were here for the start. There were some other visitors from Texas I think, Roosevelt Island (the other parkrun in DC) and myself.

We set off and unusually I was straight off at the front, I have only ever finished first on 2 previous parkrun (I’ve been second many times) so it was a nice feeling to be off the front. I don’t think running fast 5kms is as popular as it is in the UK at the moment. The river trial was a tarmac path which was very flat and even. We went underneath a few highways and alongside an access road. There was a pool and recreation centre before the final turn around point which had a larger parking area and visitor centre. It was an out and back course so I turned and made the run back.

After walking so much during the week I started to fade a bit on the home stretch. I finished in a time of 19:20 which is about 40 seconds off my personal best which I should have been close to because the course was so flat and there was no wind.

I was sweating so much by the end which seems to be normal hear even though it wasn’t that hot. I helped give out the tokens and got to meet everyone who finished. There were some young lads (age group 11-14) who finished a few minutes behind but certainly quite quick for their age. Most of the other runners were older and some preparing for a 10 mile race tomorrow. It strikes me how laid back everyone is, a lot of people have registered but do not bring barcodes and are not bothered about their time. This is quite a nice culture instead of the UK where people are quite insistent about getting their times. The “no barcode no time” isn’t enforced and I’ve seen the run directors happy to add people manually afterwards.

The group took a quick photo with me before I headed back to the hotel. It took me about 25 minutes to run back now I knew the route. I was back by 10:30am and picked up some coffee on the way. We spent an hour or so getting ready and planned to go to the botanical gardens and then get lunch. This was a short walk from the hotel to the other side of The Mall.

I was a comfortable temperature. I was feeling a bit tired but we spent a while around the botanic garden building and then the national garden which is alongside. The building is really nice and there is a lots of nice plants to look at. There is an elevated section too much gives a nice perspective of the building. In the national garden we found some wildlife in the form of some birds and butterflys.

We walked over to the sports bar again for some food. It was very busy on a Saturday afternoon, but we managed to get seated in a few minutes. I had my steak sandwich again, I was tempted for a burger but went for the option that we can’t get in the UK. We watched the football for a bit, we were both quite tired but decided to get the bus back to the Lincoln memorial. Unfortunately it seemed to take forever (about 45 minutes including waiting) so we just rode it all the way back to the station. We picked up a few items from the station and some cake before going back to the hotel.

I was feeling very tired by this stage and actually slept for a couple hours. We watched a bit of TV which including some Halloween themed cooking shows before packing our stuff for tomorrow.