Home Is...?

For some who see these words the ending is obvious. But I've been rethinking this concept lately and asking myself "Where am I truly home?"

For the past week I've been in Washington D.C. I've really enjoyed being here. The area is a lot greener than I would have imagined. There are trees and rivers everywhere. And HUGE parks! But what I think I'm enjoying the most is seeing so many runners and cyclists everywhere. Now some of the reason for this could be because I'm staying in a hotel close to George Washington University. But for the most part the trails and bike paths seem to be almost endless. And because of this and the easy availability of mass transit, I've walked almost everywhere except from the airport.

What I'm also finding interesting is even with all of the traffic, there is very little evidence of the smog or air pollution that you can become quickly conscious of in some Texas cities while riding or running outdoors. I'm starting to believe the reason for this is wherever there is a high concentration of trees, the air is just cleaner. What I think is also necessary is the presence of mature, old growth forests. Makes you think twice about that rainforest someone is currently cutting down somewhere in the Amazon.

But I digress. D.C. aside from being quite forested is also very humid and very hilly. My runs here have been hour long sweat drenched, quad shredding affairs. The shortest run this week has been 45 minutes at an average pace of 7:20 per mile (this counts as a tempo run in my book). The longest run has been 1:30 which featured climbs of anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. And I thought I was getting a break after leaving the Bay Area last month. No such luck. It seems everywhere I want to travel these days has significant climbing involved.

I never really thought I'd find myself saying this, but I can't wait to get back home to some "flat and dry" training. All of this humidity and hill running is killing me. I forgot my cable so, I'll post some pictures after I get back tomorrow.