Wake up at 6am, throw on some clothes, drive the girls to the Metro for the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. I wore running clothes because they were warm, dry, and I planned on doing a mile or so just running around trying to get pictures. My main job was to carry all their things, though so I had a backpack full of junk. As the start came around, I decided I’d do the first few miles with the ladies… with my backpack on. I jumped (actually squeezed through the bars) the corral gate, met up with them, and a few minutes later we were off.

I should have looked at the course map… After a mile, I realized that we were a mile away from the start… I figured I’d go to two miles… We were now two miles from the start. We finally turned around at 2.5 so I ended up doing five miles at Caitlin’s race pace with a freaking heavy backpack on all the while shuffling their clothes in and out as they grew hot or cold. It was interesting to say the least, but fun. After mile five I was right arund the start so I just lingered, got some pictures of them finishing, and we all met up at our designated spot. Smithsonian metro station was a zoo so we jogged up to L’Enfant Plaza where we got to board the train before everyone else… ahhh seats and no long lines. If you’re smart enough to have found this via some web-search for finding the best route, you’re welcome.

Note: The weather was about 45 degrees and raining. It was pretty gross.

Note #2: I ended up running five miles in the race at 8:16 pace, followed by maybe a quarter mile of sprinting to get pictures, and then maybe half a mile to the train station.

Due to the weather, we assumed kickball would be cancelled later in the day, and were really excited about that. Unfortunately, kickball is very serious business to some so the games were played. We ended up winning 10-4 (I think). Some of our new players are excellent… unfortunately, we lost a good handful of good ones too. Oh well, I’m not captain this season so I don’t have to care.

At the bar we did the usual beer thing. I was having such a good time that I actually stuck aorund after my teammates left (I have many good friends on other teams). I bummed $2 from Caitlin for the ride home, and that was that. A couple hours after their departure, I had won “King of the Hill” flip cup. It is basically last-man-standing. With 20ish people, the game was verrrry long. I’m not stellar at flip cup, but yesterday I was freaking on. Good stuff.

At this point I was obliterated so it was time to hop on the train to head home. I was wandering in the direction of the station when I cam across a man who was clearly lost. It turned out Mesha was in town for a conference at the SEC from Sarajevo, Bosnia. Since DC is laid out kind of goofy (you’d think 100 F Street would be at 1st and F, right? Wrong. It’s about a half mile from there), Mesha and I ended up spending a few hours together. It’s a good part of town so security wasn’t an issue. Once we found the building with the help of two police officers, we grabbed some “coffee” (we both ended up having bottles of water) at Union Station, chat for a while, and I finally walked him back to his hotel. Very nice guy, very interested in our country… good stuff. He had heard of Tysons and wanted to visit, but had no way of getting there. Since he’s here for two weeks and knows nobody, we now have plans for Tuesday night (Tysons, of course).

After leaving Mesha, I walked all the way back over to the bar just to check that no friends who could give me a ride were there, head on over to Federal Center SW, hopped on a train, arrived at Ballston, walked another mile home, took a quick shower, and hit the sack.

A good, but exhausting day.

Miles run: 5.5
Miles walked: 7 (estimated)
Kickball games won: 1
Batting average: .666
RBIs: 4
Ks: 1 (they are rare.. I was the pitcher)
Flip cup tournaments won: 1 (they are extra rare)
More hours of sleep I need right now: 4
Limbs that don’t hurt right now: 0