DC Spinster

I ran a self-timed 3K race in my home town on the morning of Memorial day this year, finishing the 1.86 miles in 16:24 (8:48 pace).  This was a bittersweet day because although it was a holiday, it was my last day of "work" because the next day I was retiring after twenty-six and a half years of service with the federal government.


Since it was a holiday, I partook of my usual lunch at the local pizzeria in the hopes that my three estranged sons would appear after a decade of non-communication.  I knew they wouldn't, and they didn't, so I invited a friend I had recently been running with to join me and we enjoyed a pizza pie during the noon hour.

We passed by Rolling Thunder as I drove her home and we also stopped in at the Air Force Memorial out of respect to members of the armed forces for their service.

Next up, boys, is the Fourth of July, which falls a week from now on next Monday.  Maybe you'll join me for lunch then at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover.

On May 25th I ran the Falls Church Memorial Day 3K Fun Run, a self-timed, short (1.76 mile not 1.86 mile length), flat and free race that has participation t-shirts at the end.  It's open to everyone.  No times are listed for anyone, you can just note the time on the race clock at the finish line for your own purposes if you want.  (At noon on Memorial Day, I had lunch at noon at the Stray Cat Cafe because you never know who might show up at one of these holiday lunches in Westover someday.)

I have my own way of running this affair.  At exactly 9 o'clock in the morning, the time the run kicks off, I run a mile by myself in the neighborhood on a little route I have laid out that brings me into the race course as it traverses down a public street from a different direction, slightly past its midway point.


I join the other runners seamlessly from the side, having already run the same amount of distance as them, and finish the race from there with the rest of the participants.  Actually, my "course" makes the fun run a true 3K length instead of it being a tenth of a mile short.  (After the race, I chatted with another past president of the DCRR Club, my friend Bob Platt, who made sure to point out that he had a faster time than me.)


That has the added advantage of avoiding the incredible crush of massed participants hemmed in on the roadway at the start with kids, strollers, leashed dogs, fast runners and walkers all jostling each other to get to open jogging or walking space, plus I don't have to use up time to go downtown to the start line beforehand, I start the race right from my doorstep.  My "time" this year was 14:52 by my watch for a real 3K(7:58), although the race clock said 16:30 when I finished (I misjudged the race's actual start by a minute and a half since they always have remarks by the mayor beforehand).

I ran in my city's Memorial Day 3K fun run yesterday morning, a low-key race I often participate in.  It's flat and fast and free, and you get a T-shirt at the end.

This year my church had a contingent of parishioners run in the race wearing distinctive T-shirts extolling its mission.  It has been struggling to rebuild its membership following the defection of its former chief priest with a majority of the congregation under his charismatic sway to a homophobic, misogynistic sect, taking the entire church property worth tens of millions with them! 

It took six years of litigation by the Episcopalian diocese to evict these squatters, which finally happened last year following years of lonely worship in the loft of a church across the street by a core of local believers in the church's obligation to be inclusive rather than exclusive in its message of love.  The lengthy enforced separation from its historic and rightful property decimated the church's local congregation base but didn't destroy its message of true faith.

We followed the lead in the race yesterday of the newly arrived chief priest who issued a challenge to any church member who was his age or older of buying a beverage of choice at the local pub for anyone who beat him.  He might have re-hydrated there after the race, but he didn't spot a beverage for anyone else.

As soon as I showed up before the race I could see in his attire and his build that he was a runner.  It's hard to spot that otherwise when the only time I normally see him he's in a shapeless flowing robe, showing nothing and hiding all.  (Above:  Reverend John is on the left, next to the only parishioner who beat him in the 3K run.)

Plus he was being largely uncommunicative before the race.  I recognized the attitude from my salad days of racing last decade--friendly but focused on the upcoming task.

The gun sounded and off we went.  The priest took the lead of the church's congregation amongst the first wave of racers and never looked back,  I didn't see him again after the first minute.

I was running a race in isolation because there was no way I could keep up with the priest and except for a younger parishioner who was hanging with him (and beat him), I was faster than the rest of the congregation members who were there in their distinctive T-shirts (I think).  I started off steadily at a swift enough pace for me these days, glad that I had jogged the mile from my house to the starting point thus infusing my blood with oxygen already in my exertions.  (Above:  Pre-race.)

Round the first four corners we went as the race stretched out from its jammed, pell-mell start to a more ordered series of groups of runners running at the same pace.  As we approached the final turn slightly past the halfway point onto the long last straightaway to the finish, my watch read eight minutes.  Although I was tiring and people were steadily starting to pass me, I was hanging in there. 

The city blocks of the long last stretch were interminable but the raucous crowd support was nice.  We passed the Catholic church then the new high rise unit then the library and there was the final signal light just before the end less than a block away.  I glanced at my watch and it showed 14:40, with a little effort I could break fifteen minutes.

I bestirred myself and finally stanched the steady flow of runners passing by me.  I hit the finish line at 14:55, an 8:00 pace, happy with my effort and my race. 

Father John had finished a minute and a half ahead of me.  When I saw him shortly later, he hardly looked bushed at all.

The 2012 Memorial Day 3K Fun Run is in the books at 19:03.  I was faster than last year's 19:47 but then again I wasn't a mere five days removed from stomach surgery like last year.  But this year I used an alternate route I sometimes use for this free race when I don't feel like walking the twenty minutes to the start line and jamming in among three thousand other participants on a narrow two-lane roadway without shoulders for the first half mile before the course opens up after the first turn.  You have to work your way through the initial crush of runners, walkers, stroller-wielders. dog-handlers and little darting children very carefully if you don't want to trip and plant yourself face-first on the blacktop.

There's no registration for this race, nor official time assigned to anyone (not even the first finisher).  You show up and run, and a clock at the finish line tells you the "official" time, which is always about a minute behind the true gun time, making for a super fast race on this flat course, especially since it's about  500 feet short anyway.  You can get a sweet time in this race if you can get ahead of the constricting pack of slow-movers at the start somehow, 

What I do instead sometimes to avoid the hazardous start is I begin right at 9 o'clock in front of my house and I burn off essentially a version of my neighborhood mile, which gratuitously adds two hills including the W&OD Trail's bicycle bridge over Route 7,  before my alternative route debouches onto the actual race course .86 of a mile from the finish.  I hit the stream of runners at the time and pace I should be at after a mile of running and finish the last long straightaway with them.  This is an unordered fun run anyway, which strives for inclusion to the exclusion of everything else.

This year my passage was most unusual.

Barely two minutes into my run I ran by the ex-mayor's house, a neighbor of mine, and saw her in her driveway.  I hadn't seen her in several months and she is undergoing a continuing and devastating personal and family crisis so I stopped to talk with her for a couple of minutes.  She seemed to be doing okay.

Continuing my run, by the time I hit the highway bridge I was pouring sweat on this hot, humid morning.  I wasn't killing myself with my pace and I was already rejecting internal complaints that I should walk instead of jog.  Up ahead I could see a long steady stream of runners cutting across my front on West Street where it crosses the W&OD Trail.  Several policemen were blocking the intersection with their squad cars, as usual.  Remember, I have done this version of my fun run four or five other times without a problem.

As I jogged off the trail and turned to blend into the stream of runners (no bibs) on West Street a Sheriff''s Department deputy barked out to me, "Excuse me, sir, you  have to detour that way!"  He was pointing up West Street opposite of the way the runners were going.

What?  I'm a runner and can easily blend into or work my way through (if I wanted to continue down the W&OD Trail, on foot, at that particular moment) a stream of runners.  I join up with groups of runners at various times on runs all the time!

I said to this transport officer who otherwise belongs in the courthouse providing bailiff services, "What?"

"You have to go that way, sir." he said, pointing the wrong way up West Street.  "Or else wait right there until the event is over. You can't cross this street." 

"You're kidding, right?" I asked, sweat dripping off my face and my drenched coolmax shirt clinging to my skin.  The event wouldn't be over for another twenty or thirty minutes when the last two-year old stragglers straggled by holding their daddies' hands.

Now he was engaged with me in the street and his buddy, another Sheriff''s Department deputy, was coming over to add weight to the brewing argument.  A lot of weight.  The two or three real cops at the intersection were ignoring this brouhaha,

"No sir, we're not kidding, you have to go that way."  The second officer was adding a lot to the discussion.  "But I'm not going that way," I announced brightly.

"Then you have to find another way around."  The weight of the law.

While they studied my every move, I skirted their blinking patrol units the opposite way that they were pointing, outside of the orb of their protection zone, and started walking down the south sidewalk of Park Street, which was jammed with dozens of onlookers.  A lot of townspeople come out to run or spectate this race, and I couldn't believe two cops were focusing all of their attention on me, a pedestrian.  Shouldn't they be looking to stop...cars?

But I hadn't crossed their precious line of runners, which had the normal amount of breaks and gaps in it you'd expect mid-race at any event.  A block down Park Street I resumed running, filtered into the street, and ran past the finish line a half dozen block later.  The clock said 19:03 when I finished, which wasn't bad given the couple of unexpected stoppages that occurred during my 3K run.

My second race of the year is in the books. My city has a Memorial Day 3K Fun Run which I run every year.

It's flat, and fast for reasons which I'll disclose later. I walked to the race's starting point, about a mile from my house, and settled into the back half of the pack because I wasn't intending to run very fast out of deference to my umbilical hernia repair operation five days earlier.

I couldn't even break into a trot for the first five minutes of the race due to the congestion caused by thousands of participants and dozens of running strollers crowding onto the two-lane roadway which comprised the first half-mile of the course. The hundreds of walkers and many walking stroller pushers who had lined up in the first half of the pack made it impossible to penetrate into the race course for several blocks.

The roadway broadened after the first turn and sideways darting movement from curb to curb finally made running possible. I moved very slowly and settled into a slow plod.

Ten minutes into the race I was running unencumbered and I jogged along, focusing on my body. I could feel a dull pain where the incision on my stomach was but so long as I ran very slowly and didn't get too out of breath, I felt fine except for the tenderness and some general fatigue.

It was hot though, with the temperature in in the eighties and the humidity high. As sweat started to soak my shirt, I could see the finish line a couple of blocks away.

My watch had just rolled past 19 minutes but I resisted the urge to pick up my pace and dash to it. Although I wanted to break twenty, I didn't want to hurt myself.

My watch read 20:36 when I passed the finish clock of this self-timed fun run. The race clock, however, read 19:47.

I decided to record the sub-twenty time in my personal race ledger, as that was the "official" time. I felt good about completing this twenty minute jog, and used the run to show myself that I shall shortly be back to running after last week's surgery.

Now for the reasons why this 3K race is so fast. I have always known that the course is about a tenth of a mile short, but now I also think that the race clock isn't even turned on until about a minute into the race.

A race with a course that is flat, short and which has favorable time mismanagement. How sweet is that?

I missed my second Tidal Basin 3K in a row this month, due to a meeting I was summoned to at 11:30 a week ago last Wednesday. The race, run the 3rd Wednesday of every month, starts at noon over two miles from my workplace. Before last month, I had run in 98 out of the last 108 races.

The race has changed for me though, as some people who regularly run it blame me, as president, for my club ending its sponsorship this year of the forty five year old race. A new association was formed to run the race, which is problematic because it's run on Park Service land and it is unpermitted. There are problems when the wrong Park Ranger shows up and wants to take names and lay down the law about groups over 25 persons gathering for any purpose there (I don't know how tour buses get away with letting their passengers out for a short hike). This is infrequent, however. I don't feel welcome running the race, even though I personally contributed $50 to the association to help it get started.

Anyway, the next morning I decided to do a fast short run by doing what used to be my staple run, a 2.5 mile run to the schoolhouse up the street and back. In olden times I did this run at breakneck speed five mornings a week, 12.5 miles every week. I'd be done with my daily exercise before the coffee finished brewing. It kept me sleek and fast, but I didn't have much base.

Now I run in groups and do around 25 miles each week. I have a base but I'm much less sleek and far slower. Hmmm.

Outbound there's a hill that's a third of a mile long. I can tell I'm on track if I get to the turnaround a mile and a quarter out in under ten minutes, which is an 8:00 m/m pace.

This particular morning I labored going up the hill and I passed the mile marker at 8:20. I hit the turnaround at 10:20 and wondered if I could return in 9:19. I couldn't. I ran up to my driveway at 20:12 (8:05), for a return trip of 9:52. If I had been doing a virtual 3K race, my time for 1.86 miles would have been 15:04.

The coffee was ready by the time I got back.

It's been a long and eventful weekend, full of running.

Friday I did eight miles of hillwork. Next month I am running Leg 2 of the DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay on a team assembled by my old running buddy, Bex. Described by her as the second toughest of the seven legs, Leg 2 is 8.4 miles long at over 6,000 feet elevation, with the last half being one long hill where the highway rises from lake level to climb 700 feet up a mountain pass.

Bex told all the team members to get busy working hills. Not Born to Run used to call Bex the L'il Dictator when she lived in DC, so I paid heed to Bex's admonishment.

Saturday I did my club's Saturday Long Run. It was a hot day and the schedule called for 12 miles on the Mall. I only ran 10K, however. I made it to Capitol Hill and ran up that incline for hillwork, but then, enervated by the humidity, I went to my nearby office and worked for awhile before taking Metro to a two-hour meeting I had scheduled with other club officials for after the run.

Sunday morning I ran ten miles on the W&OD with a friend who was in town for the weekend. She was bemoaning a 3:29 marathon she ran last month, impacted by a hamstring injury, while I was bemoaning a 4:15 marathon I ran last month, impacted by a toe injury. That shows the disparity in our running abilities.

We had a nice time catching up, although I cringed when she commented , "Eight forty-five miles are just perfect for today." I was barely holding on at that pace as the miles rolled on by.

Since we ran west from Falls Church, we traversed two pedestrian bridges over the beltway highway network. People were lining the overpass railings, waving to the scores of motorcycle riders of Rolling Thunder as they passed by underneath in a steady thrum of deep-sounding engines, heading into the District for a Memorial weekend tribute to fallen and missing American service personnel, flags snapping and popping from the back of their machines.

At church service later that morning, the priest, who had been delayed in getting to the service by traffic tie-ups associated with the hundreds of motorcyclists, tied the phenomena of Rolling Thunder to the formation of the Christian Church. Once, each movement was outside of the culture, he said, and innovative although misunderstood or even feared. Then each became institutionalized, and no longer shaped or changed society, rather, society shaped and changed it. Each movement became an institution, a very different thing, with interests to protect rather than to promote. Dare to be different, he urged.

I like this Episcopal priest and closely listen to each of his sermons. In another time, my time, he would have been termed a hippie, maybe. That's the Episcopal Church I remember growing up with, a big tent with room for all. Afterwards during communion, I reflected upon the memory of my father and my mother, who passed in 1986 and 1999 respectively, and others.

I reflected upon upon the following letter, slightly edited for length, I sent last week to the last known address of my youngest son, Danny. He no longer lives there at his Mother's old address, a house which was sold this past autumn. My ex steadfastly refuses to give me the current address of any of our children. She "won" the divorce wars, see, because my children disdain me. I no longer try to communicate with my two other sons anymore, since they are both over 21 now and have ignored all of my communications for years.

May 2009

Dear Dan,

How are you? I am fine. I hope things are well with you. How is school?

I hope you were able to get something nice with that birthday check I sent to you. Is everything going well with the pre-paid college tuition plan that I own for your benefit? Are 100% of your tuition and fees getting paid by it? If not, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I spent a quiet birthday last month, making supper at home and opening a couple of cards I received from your aunts. A friend gave me an Obama wristwatch for my birthday, which was kind of cute. It doesn’t make a good stopwatch, though, so it’s not good for running.

A week from now is Memorial Day. Remember when we ran in the Falls Church Memorial Day 3K race together a decade ago? That was fun. With all the soccer teammates of yours we ran by that morning, I could have conducted a team practice at the finish line.

I have run that Memorial Day 3K race for the last several years. I would love to run it with you again, this year. We could go out for breakfast afterwards at the Original Pancake House in Falls Church. We can meet on my front porch on Monday at 8:45 and go over to the start line from there. Bring your UnderArmour togs!

Please call me and let me know whether or not you’d like to do this, so I can make plans. I look forward to hearing from you.

I miss you! Gosh, it’s been over half a decade since I last saw you for more than a few seconds, and over two years since I last spoke with you. I haven’t heard from you in any fashion since the summer of 2007; I hope you’ve gotten all the Christmas/birthday/special-event cards and presents I have sent to you. I remember when that divorce lawyer in Fairfax [William Reichhardt], amazingly, was taking mail I sent to you and turning it into a court exhibit! I hope you get this, perhaps your mail is still being manipulated by others, even though you are no longer a child like you were then.

I’ll fill you in on all your cousins, aunts, etc. on my side of the family when you call. There isn't a single one of them who has heard from you in over half a decade! You can’t be mad at all of my blood-relatives, having accepted the trust fund that my mother scrimped to amass and set aside to be used for your benefit.

I am enclosing some snapshots, of Uncle Jack, your room, my best marathon, and last Christmas, to help you start catching up!

Anyway, no need to thank me for that birthday check. I’m glad you received it! I just look forward to speaking with you soon.

Love,

Dad.

8:45 on Monday morning came and went with an aching sameness. I went and ran the 3K race in 13:47. I scanned the collected diners at the Original Pancake House without recognizing any of them.

Then a friend called, who had just struck a deer on I-66 east of Ballston which had jumped over the fence lining the Metro tracks in the center median and into her path. She was lucky to be alive, much less unhurt.

The State Trooper on the scene had never seen a deer that close in on the busy highway before. I went to help my friend pick up the pieces and get her car to the dealership for repair. It looks totaled to me.

Happy Memorial day.

Sunday was the 30th running of the Capitol Hill Classic 10K, a race which suffered a course change last year due to concerns the U.S. Capitol Police had about the hordes of runners circling the streets encircling the U.S. Capitol during a race. The old CHC course went down Capitol Hill on Independence Avenue along the south side of the Capitol in the fifth mile, turned right to run across the front of the Capitol, and then went back up Capitol Hill on Constitution Avenue along the north side of the Capitol.

This rearing proclivity was tough because of its length, a third of a mile, and its lateness in the race, during the sixth mile. In the 2007 race, while climbing this interminable hill in a fog of fatigue, I experienced what it felt like to be "running underwater." (Right: The 2007 CHC course.)

In 2008, the course changed. The start and finish line remained in Stanton Square, but the hill climb became a down and back up on the south side of the Capitol, during the fifth mile. Climbing Capitol Hill this "early" in the race, especially right after descending it, just didn't provide the same system-shocking challenge. Last year my time improved by over a minute. (Left: The 2008 CHC course.)

Local running legend Jim Hage, two-time winner of both the MCM and the ATM, described the change for the Washington Running Report in its May 20, 2007 issue:

"For 28 years, the charge down and then up Capitol Hill in the final mile has presented the 10K's signature challenge. But the course [will] be changed next year according to the race director due to security issues; one cannot be too careful when thousands of men and women in short pants troop around the nation's legislative brain center early on a Sunday morning."

The CHC has a companion 3K race, which is run an hour after the 10K race and doesn’t involve any hill. Its course winds around the flat streets behind the Capitol. I have run the 3K race three times, twice after finishing the 10K race.

Although I wanted a unique personal challenge this year, I didn’t want to mislead any racers in either the 10K or the 3K races who might follow me by mistake if I strayed off the race course. I decided to incorporate the old charge around the Capitol into a bastardized version of the 3K run, and initiate my virtual 3K race at the start of the 10K race. I would run the 3K course, but add the old 10K version of the charge down and back up Capitol Hill which circled the Capitol. This would incorporate a hill into the 3K race and lengthen it by a mile.

I took off with the 10K racers from Stanton Park and ran down Massachusetts Avenue with them to Lincoln Park. Here the 10K race heads out further east to encircle RFK Stadium before turning back towards the Capitol, while the 3K race turns back towards the Capitol right away. I had to do a lot of sideways running that first half mile in the crush of 2,100 runners, but then less than four minutes later I was all by myself as I turned west on East Capitol Street while everyone else continued east towards RFK.

Volunteers were busy setting up water stations as I ran by without a number, trying to keep my speed up now that I was running alone. I ran to the back of the Capitol and turned left on 3rd Street SE to Independence. There I turned right, just like the 3K race does, but instead of turning right a block later to run north behind the Capitol to the finish line in Stanton Park, I kept on going straight and plunged down Capitol Hill. At the bottom, I turned right and ran across the front of the Capitol, and then headed back up towering Capitol Hill on the other side.

I was definitely focused and having fun on this solitary run. My feeling that I was in a "race" kept my speed up and I attacked the uphill. Attaining the top, I ran the last half mile to the finish line in the park. I was careful to veer off before I got there, however, so no one would mistake me for a racer.

My time was 21:47. For a 3K race that would suck, at 11:43 M/M, but for a 2.86 mile race, it wouldn’t be too bad, a 7:37 M/M solo effort with a hellacious hill thrown in.

My very own Virtual CHC 3K Plus One. I finished barely nine minutes ahead of the actual 10K winner, though.

Lignum vitae wood is a dense wood heavier than water, which is used in boatmaking. Why I don't know, although Captain Jimmy told me. I forget now though. I guess it sinks, which doesn't seem like a desirable property for wood on a boat to me. (Right: I'm guessing that the reddish wood is lignum vitae.)

Memorial Day was nice. When I woke up on Monday I lay in bed for a moment and thought of my Dad, who died in 1986, and his sacrifices on Peleliu and Okinawa. I thought of Uncle Bill, who died in 1988, and his sacrifices in the Philippines. I thought of Uncle Harry, who lives in Colorado, and his sacrifices aboard the fast carrier strike force at both Battles of the Philippine Sea and in attacks against island garrisons and the Japanese homeland. I thought of Sy, who lives in Florida, and his sacrifices with Patton’s Third Army at the Battle of the Bulge and in Germany.

Then I thought about how I hate kids. Well, not really, but how I hate kids in races. Because they start out fast, get ahead of you, and then get underfoot as they suddenly veer here and there looking for friends or slowing down because they’re tired.

Falls Church has a free Memorial Day 3K Fun Run that is flat and fast. It is untimed, other than the fact that the clock at the finish line displays race time. There you receive an unnumbered slip of paper which you exchange for a free race t-shirt, provided by ex-Lt. Governor Don Beyer. There are no bibs, and no results are posted anywhere.

The run starts in front of the Community Center, and everyone in town, it seems, runs it. This seems to includes every single pre-teen in Falls Church. They all jam to the front. The first half-mile of this run is very treacherous with so many inexperienced runners in front. The last time I started downtown, I ran with my heart in my throat and my eyes locked on the roadway six feet ahead. It's a couple of minutes of high-stress running as youngsters dart underfoot until you get away from them.

To rectify this hazard, I have developed a mile run around my neighborhood that starts just down the block, runs past my house and hits the race course right at MP1. So at 9 o'clock on Memorial Day morning I line up by myself on my street and take off. A mile later I hit the race at the midway point, ostensibly joining the pack of runners exactly where I should be anyway. At least that’s the theory. Then I run the last 0.86 miles with everyone else to the finish line.

Thus I miss the chaotic start and avoid the real danger of going down hard on asphalt from tripping over some runner who doesn’t have a clue about race protocol. I can get a fast workout in, getting up to race speed quickly without having to work my way through a crush of people at the start. Plus I can drink coffee in my kitchen until two minutes before race time.

At 9 am I took off down the street. As I ran past my house, I noticed a pile of pizza-size cardboard boxes stacked on my porch. I thought that was odd and determined to check it out after the race. (I noticed this stack of boxes left on my porch as I ran by my house during the 3K race on Memorial Day.)

As I burned off a mile, I could see the race course two hundred yards ahead. The street was empty, with no runners streaming by. That was not good, as I certainly didn’t want to join the course ahead of the race leaders.

With a hundred yards to go, I saw the lead motorcycle cop go by, then the lead runner, then two more. Another two men ran by just as I crashed the course at MP 1, the first mile down in 7:00 according to my watch. I was sixth! Woo hoo! Not!

This was embarrassing to be so far up front, so I picked up my pace and hung onto the lead runners as best as I could. It wasn’t like I joined the course standing still. Slowly the five leaders drew off and other runners started passing me. The runners going by were easy to count that last 0.8 mile. Fourteen ran by, including a woman. I finished 20th out of, probably, 1,000 or more participants.

But of course my finishing place was a fraud. But since there are no places in this race anyway, it didn't matter. It’s unofficial.

But my time was real. My watch said 12:51 (6:54) when I finished the 3K run. The race clock, however, said 10:48. Either I started over two minutes early, or the race start got a little delayed. Sorry!

As I collected my t-shirt, I ran into D behind me on line, who is about my age and very fit. Our oldest children played soccer together. I coached the team. I asked about his son, and D said he had just graduated from college. Memories of five years of ruinous divorce litigation came flooding back. These contemporaries could be posterboys for the life-altering and family-destroying state of American domestic law.

My oldest never went to college despite graduating from the premier high school in the country, bar none. For the last four years he has lived with his Mother and worked as a gopher for the divorce lawyer who was retained, supposedly, by my three minor sons when "they" filed a "fiduciary" suit against me before the divorce action was even complete. The court found that the petition was an unconscionable harassment suit, an attempt by their Mother to interfere with my relationship with my children, and ultimately she was sanctioned and assessed costs of almost $50,000. But her actively involving our minor children in the divorce action so affected them that, in effect, none of my kids has seen me or talked to me or anyone on my side of the family since then, and my oldest changed his last name from mine to hers on his 21st birthday. The divorce lawyer supposedly representing these minor children, who is a past President of the Virginia State Bar, did a good job in "their" litigation against their father, don't you think? He presented a bill to these children of over $22,000 for his services.

D asked me how I did. I said 12:51. He looked puzzled and asked how he had finished behind me since he had run a 12:01. I congratulated him for beating me and told him that if he thought he had seen me finish ahead of him, it was only because I had run my race in a parallel universe. He looked even more puzzled.

The 2008 Falls Church Memorial 3K was in the books, and I headed home. I had a full day ahead of me still. I wanted to see what those boxes were that were left on my porch. And it was dollar admission day at the minor league baseball stadium in Prince William County (Woodbridge, VA) for the Potomac Nationals (Single A) game at 1 pm. As an added bonus, hot dogs were only a dollar.

Today was the third Wednesday of the month. Time for the monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K run, which dates back to 1974.

An hour after I finished the Capitol Hill Classic 10K on Sunday morning, I lined up for the Capitol Hill Classic 3K. This is supposedly a fun run, although it is chip timed. Plus they have a fun run for the kids after this fun run. Even though this race is loaded with kids, it’s competitive.

Last Wednesday was the monthly running of the noontime Tidal Basin 3K. It's a 2.6 mile warmup run down there from my building for the 1.86 mile race, then a 2.6 mile cooldown run back to work. It's a full midday workout alright.

I've written about G before. He's my agency's rock star runner. He won the Capitol Hill Classic 3K last year. He did this after finishing the 10K race a few minutes earlier.

Wednesday he was mad at me, I could tell. We were heading to the monthly noontime club 3K race around the Tidal Basin and I was late in meeting up with him. We had only twenty minutes in which to run the 2.6 miles there.

He kept asking me if I thought we'd make it. I kept asking him how fast we were going. My answer was always, Yeah sure, they always start late. His answer was always, Oh, seven something.

As in a sub-eight minute per mile pace, according to his Garmin. My tongue was hanging out. A two and a half mile warmup at a 7:40 pace, for a 1.8 mile race that I would probably run at a 7:20 pace. That's not warm, that's hot. As in not. Not wishing I was making this run with the rock star.

And I was wrong also. My good friend Jay Wind, the race director, started the race on time for the first time since whenever because it was cold. We ran up as all the racers ran off.

G immediately ran right after them, but I stopped to peel off my windshirt. It was already sodden with sweat from the warmup.

I crossed the start line having given a significant head start to the sprinkling of octogenarians who always run this race. These are the guys I gun for in this uber competitive club race.

I'm joshing a little here, but I was behind by a few seconds. G was already out of sight chasing the leaders. Meanwhile I was knocking off women and boys and the elderly (ahem) right and left as we passed by the FDR Memorial and the nearby site of the future MLK Memorial.

I ran by another runner from my agency. I clapped him on the shoulder as I passed him and he grunted in acknowledgement. He doesn't usually come to this race. He's older and slightly slower than me so I'm always glad to see him there.

Now I was up among familiar faces. We ran up the hill on the course and I passed Jay. He's faster than me but I beat him occasionally. I settled down to a long pursuit of a young man ahead of me and the third-place woman ahead of him. I always overtake this woman in the last mile.

We passed the mile mark and I went by both of them. I drew the fellow along with me past the woman. Ahead was a racing doppelganger of mine, a good friend named Peter. He's about my age and although he is slightly faster than me, I beat him sometimes.

Peter is my yardstick in any race we're in together. We have a routine, like an old couple. I always pass him early, and then he comes up and passes me late with a sprint which I can't match.

Peter goes postal in the last 200 meters in those instances. I think he guns for me. But sometimes he doesn't come and I beat him. He's always very gracious, win or lose. He's got a great young daughter who occasionally runs with him.

There Peter was, 30 meters in front of me as we ran by the backside of the Jefferson Memorial. The last half-mile straightaway section was coming up. This is the awful time of this race, a time of reflection when you mull over what you're made of.

There he is. Go get him. No I'm tired. I can't.

Jay went by me. I drafted off him and went by Peter. I heard a charge from behind. The young man I had passed a quarter mile back was going postal and he sprinted by me. I let him go. I kept watching Peter behind me. With 30 meters to go he charged. He's definitely faster than me in this familiar routine. But in this race I dug deep. So close to the end! I booked.

Jay 13:51
Young Fellow 13:52
Me 13:52 (7:26), 33/53 overall
Peter 13:53

G finished 13th, whereas he usually finishes in the top ten. I hope he's still speaking to me.

Even though I was solidly in the bottom half of the field, as usual, I felt good about this run. I beat my doppelganger this time. Someday I'll tell you about the first age-group medal I ever won, which involved holding off Peter by 4 seconds, way before I ever knew he was my "odd couple partner," in some obscure race 70 miles from DC in the third race I ever ran. I thought at the time as I collected my medal, Oh, this is easy. It was five years before I ever won a medal again.

I had my last yoga class tonight for awhile. Back when I was running really well in 2006, I was training really hard (doing track workouts) and doing yoga at least once week. It made a real difference in my times by increasing my core strength, helping my flexibility, allowing me to cope with a hamstring injury through stretching routines and teaching me better breathing techniques.

I take a Vinyasa Yoga class at my town's community center from 8 to 9 pm once a week. It forces me to leave work at 7 o'clock to get to it on time because otherwise I'm in no particular hurry to go home to an empty, cold house. (I can't get the thermostat below 49 degrees so sometimes the heat comes on and heats the entire house no matter what I wish.)

Why this brand of yoga? I like the instructor, LR. She doesn't ignore the two men in the room and she doesn't get uptight if things get a little disrupted, like people coming in late. The last class I took, the instructor locked the door right on the hour and I experienced stress whenever I heard the doorknob turn as people tried to enter at one minute past the hour. I didn't like the fact that they were shut out.

Tonight was the last night of class until February and it was a good workout. Me and Larry sort of flopped around while the rest of the class flowed through the mini-vinis. Afterwards I walked out the door of the community center and immediately broke into a run to do the town's 3K Memorial Day Fun Run course. I do that race every year and it's free, self-timed and you get a T-shirt at the end, gratis. It's also flat and short by about 500 feet, so you can get a really good time. Not that any of it is official.

The route leaves from the community center and returns there. All the Moms in the class know my routine and I think they congregate briefly in the parking lot to watch me take off running after every class. I have no doubt they have a good laugh about me after I streak off. (I have determined it is bad form to run to yoga class because no one wants to start a yoga class with a guy in there breathing heavily and already sweating up a storm.)

It's great to run footloose and carefree after spending 55 minutes stretching and 5 minutes luxuriating in a final relaxation pose (which is akin to taking a nap). The kinks are already all worked out.

Tonight I pounded out the 3K in 13:59 (7:30) in the dark. I had no drive in my legs after last weekend's exertions of 30 miles. But the run felt good. I was feeling like such a slug after not running yesterday nor this morning. Maybe I should get a life. (Left: Last Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, I ran a 12:52 (6:54) in the daylight.)

I'll miss yoga til it resumes again.