10 Jan 2018 | G-town> 1° post of 2018 + perhaps the last from DC.... gearing up for our expatriation—make sure we're stocked + loaded w/ Calamari, check. Liquidate xcess (thanx to those that got chef's selection.. only a few days left for those that havent). Set up a virtual mailbox (in West Hollywood, yo), check. Order stuff hard-to-get in Rome (black beans, maseca corn flour, chapulines, canned + dried chiles, habanero seeds to plant our own, etc.)... after all, our move is paid for, no way we'll come close to filling allotted shipping container. Running shoes, check. Adaptors + voltage tranformers, check. Laundry list of books to read,

check. Weights, exercise bands + mats to have our own home gym (since such things are scarce in Rome), check. FX pedals + other stuff for recording, check. Oh, dont forget the new iMac (27"), check! Our old 1 can't keep up w/ new software, a slow death. Ticking off milestones, 5 days til they move our shit, 20 days til we ourselves fly the coop. Rented a car 1 day to pack up our bedder-½'s offices, in Baltimore + DC, check. Brushing up on Italiano nel frattempo, con Rosetta Stone. Oggi was biggest hurdle, to get an Italian visa, at the Italian embassy (a mile or 2 hike thru the park for us, off route 3 below). Dint get the visa yet, but got the ball rolling. Not many last to-dos of things will miss in DC (i.e. restraunts), not nearly as dramatic as the 1° time we shipped off to Rome in 2010... 1 thing we can say about DC is that its a dope place for running. We already covered our go-to east-side running routes in Capitol Hill, now we'll map out westerly 1s since living in G-town...

1. G-town perimeter route—our favorite route was to run down along Rock Creek parkway to the C+O canal (or along the river), then up thru Glover-Archibold park, then thru Whitehall park + Dunbarton Oaks back home... the whole way not crossing a major intersection xcept a'cross Wisconsin ave, where theres a Safeway so sumtimes we'd hump a pack + combine exorcise w/ errands.

a frozen rock creek where it hits the Potomac+ a distant Watergate

along the C+O canal (with ice skating tracks)

under the tracks (don't let the fences + «keep out» signs stop u)

into Archibold-Glover park

into Whitehall park

2. Rock Creek park past the zoo—not sure it deserves the hype (how many times have you herd DC runners rave about Rock Creek?) but definitly good runnin'... our main complaint is the amount of traffic on such a narrow + unkempt bike path + for a good part of it right next to the parkway w/ its ever-present xhaust-spewing traffic. We usually just wint past the zoo (~10k roundtrip), so dint often get into Rock Creek Park proper unless we was on our bike. We liked this run in the rain or just after cuz we noticed the animals were most vocal then + it smelled like Africa or sumping w/ all the wet elephant shit.

Rock Creek

Oak Hill Cemetary

Mass ave. bridge

Taft bridge

3. Dunbarton Oaks—our shorter rest-day route (5-8 k) went up Rock Creek then back thru Dunbarton Oaks. Under the Taft bridge (above) we might stop + do push-ups + sit-ups or stuff @ the par course stations there. Dunbarton Park also had a decent hill that sometimes we'd run sprints on.

Dunbarton Oaks

Oak Hill cemetary

Q street bridge

note Indian heads supporting the arches (the same bridge flanked by 4 buffaloes)

4. Embassy Row—an alternate way to run Dunbarton Oaks is to cut up Normanstone drive, past a bunch of embassies + thru Normanstone park, across Mass Ave (flip off Pence when u pass his house, across the street from the British embassy) then down thru Dunbarton.

5. Potomac—this route is good when it's cold + sunny as there's not a lot of tree cover (unlike most of the other routes)... down the parkway, past Watergate + Kennedy center, the tricky part (to get thru all the exchanging traffic near Lincoln Memorial) is to cut in at the volleyball courts + go under, then continue down Potomac park which is nice cuz there aint thru traffic. U can even run along the tidal basin + some of the memorials if u can stomach the tourists. Or if u want a longer run, take the 14th street bridge (the bridge Air Florida flight 90 crashed into, before plunging into the icy Potomac) + then up the Virginia side of the river past Roosevelt island (see the next route).

6. Roosevelt Island—run down Rock Creek parkway + past the Watergate complex then cut up past the Kennedy Center + across Roosevelt bridge, then up Virginia side of the Potomac. Take the footbridge to Roosevelt island where u can run around in circles on various paths, then back across Key Bridge.

Key bridge + an iced-over Potomac

7. Exorcist steps—if u want some step cross-training, from the canal tow path cut up + run the Exorcist steps, tho there can often be hordes of tourists now that it's listed as a landmark on Google maps.

8. Mall Crawl—if you're a serious glutton for stiff-arming tourists, then there's the mall w/ all it's landmarks... we did this run more from Capitol Hill, but even then only on rainy weekdays.