Hello Saturday Long Runners!
Happy Peak Bloom (which technically wasn't called until 10:20 this morning, but by the looks of it we've been in "peak-enough" bloom for a few days now). That means we'll have a wonderful cherry blossom run on deck in the morning, but please be mindful of the trees and your fellow tree-watchers. As a reminder, touching the trees (including stepping on their roots) damages them, watch your step and your heads tomorrow morning, especially because it will lkely be quite crowded at the Tidal Basin when we're running through it. Now let's get into it:
The Route: We're hitting up the Water Route (strava, gps, pdf), which migh as well be renamed for the Cherry Blossoms since that's really the only time we do this one (what can I say, I don't like Hains Point ~360 days of the year). We'll head across the Key Bridge down the Rock Creek trail and over to Hains, though we may have to make a slight detour due to road closures in that area (it's been very hit or miss that direction, but won't add any distance). From there we'll go around Hains Point then around the Tidal Basin and head back across Memorial Bridge and up the Mount Vernon Trail to finish the run!
Want Something Shorter? Take metro to see the blossoms and not see double-digits on your watch. Smithsonian and L'Enfant Plaza are great options and will put you on a train straight back to Rosslyn. If you'd like to make it a loop, cutting out the Tidal Basin will get you somewhere around 10 miles and removing Hains will leave you with around 9.
Need a Longer Route? Extra loops of Hains will get you a lot of extra blossoms, just be mindful that for every additional loop you're looking at approximately an additonal billion people showing up to the Tidal Basin. An out and back on the Mount Vernon Trail will be a lot quieter if you want to avoid the crowds.
Thirsty? "Too bad" says NPS, who still hasn't turned on any water fountains. Potentially Peak Bloom will have changed that, but I wouldn't count on it.
Need a Bathroom? There are many around and even more temporary ones along the Cherry Blossom Festival, most of which should even be open in the morning!
As a reminder we've got the training seminar at Pacer's in Georgetown tomorrow at 10:15 and a meetup at Pacer's at 9 AM for a 2-7 mile run with Joe, Kelly and the training program coaches. If you're interested in attending the seminar, e-mail joe@dcroadrunners.org ASAP (RSVPs were technically due yesterday, but a few more folks won't hurt, this was mostly for a ballpark estimate for food purposes).
Happy Running!
Anna
