Like most of us, I'm required to go out of town on business occasionally. Being that I'm uncomfortable leaving my family for any extended period, I made sure that I was away the least amount of time possible. In this case, a 20 hour trip to Washington, DC was in the cards and I wanted to be home the next day to hang out with my daughter. But, I have the big 40 miler coming up and I need to continue to train. Therefore, the coupling of traveling and training has begun.
Waking up at 3a to ride the bike before my flight so I could get enough leg conditioning in was critical. I got on the plane and slept from the time I sat down until the announcement to put up my tray table. We landed at Washington National airport at 9a on Saturday morning. By 9.30a I was running from the airport terminal on the sidewalks along the ice-capped Potomac River into DC. It was 19 degrees. Monuments to my right and heavy traffic to my left. Marine One flew over as I approached the Memorial Bridge with a Park Police escort. I began wondering where The President may be going that day.
Running over the Key Bridge at about mile 5 I saw a friend from my White House days, who I hadn't seen in 10 years, running the opposite direction. I would have never seen him if I were in a cab. We stopped and caught up and lots of great memories came back to me about him and how good of a guy he was/is. I like those encounters when two people are happy to see each other. I thought a lot about what life would be like if Tanner and I decided to stay in DC; living and working in the city, raising our family in the city. What sort of house would we be in? Where would our kids go to school? Would we be happy?
I turned the corner from M Street onto Wisconsin Ave and started climbing a 3 mile hill to my hotel. Two words, Oiy and Vey. I couldn't make it. I walked most of it, but by walking I became cold, so I started running, but I couldn't run because it was a hill so I started to walk...and so it went. The last 3 miles in 50 minutes. The water I was carrying froze. Carl Lewis would be so impressed.
I checked in to the hotel with my running tights on, a frozen and bugger-showing nose and a credit card. Its DC so they only focused on the credit card.
Met another friend and his daughter for lunch, did my work that afternoon and evening and was on a flight the next morning to see my family. I was gone 20 hours, but it felt like 20 days. I couldn't wait to get the hugs that I've become addicted to receiving everyday.
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