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Even more leaves!

November 1, 2018 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Driving home from dinner with two Williams friends in Arlington, the sky appeared to be raining leaves. Though I'd already run twice in the past 12 hours, I felt the call. I knew what I had to do. As soon as I got home I changed my clothes, put on my running shoes, hurried downstairs, and.... decided to send Emily V. a FB message about this running club I recommended she should join. And then send my sister a text of the Jack-o-lantern I'd carved. And then look at The Washington Post. And then... you get the picture. By the time I ACTUALLY got out the door 25 minutes later, the leaf rain had stopped and normal rain was getting started. What a bummer. Clearly, the worst decision I'd made all month.

Still, the air was warm and my legs (despite the 10.5 miles they'd run) were feeling spritely, so I set off through the neighborhood at a carefree trot, hoping to catch some leaves by moonlight. This proved to be a rather difficult proposition given the lack of any moon, but it sounds more romantic and magical and adventurous if you say "moonlight," so let's just pretend. Running with no phone or keys in my hands was positively liberating, and I started to wish I'd left my watch behind as well so that I could frolick under that stars (or under the clouds which were, I presume, under some starts) with a Nomi-like abandon. I did see a flurry of leaves from time to time, but alas I never caught any, despite making contact with half a dozen. I suppose daylight is rather helpful for catching things. After heading out Rittenhouse toward Rock Creek Park, I turned onto Nebraska, then Utah, and finally meandered my way out to Military Rd by Temple Sinai. It was then that it occurred to me to attempt the one loop I could remember inventing back in high school (and which probably appears in my sophomore year log: the Linnean Loop, which consists of running out Linnean Street to Albermarle (parallel to Brandywine Hill) and back via Connecticut, Chevy Chase Parkway, and finally to Nevada and Rittenhouse.

As I started up Linnean, however, past the spot where I'd once encountered my 10th grade PE teacher Karen on a jog 15 years ago, all the mystical romance of a midnight run rapidly vanished and the fact that this was the third run of the day and it would soon be nigh 1 am set in. It was raining. I was tired. There were no leaves to be caught. Doing 3 runs in half a day was neither necessary for my training (training for what? I have no clue) nor good for me. I'd been carried along up to that point by the excitement that I loved running, loved listening to the promising rustle of the breeze in the trees, the magic of having the streets all to myself, and feeling of being powerful and in shape and the world mine to conquer. Huffing and puffing up that hill up towards Mark Berenson's house, however, I just felt tired and worn down. So I decided to change things up. Rather than doing the loop I had committed to 2 minutes earlier, I turned right and began exploring some streets I'd never ventured down. Immediately, I was excited again. There may not be any leaves to catch, but at least I was on an adventure. "If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new," I thought to myself. That's a Voltaire quote. I didn't actually think that. If I had thought it I would have misremembered it because I'd last seen this quote in a movie called Tadpole with Jonny Dach during senior year of high school. But no matter. I soon found myself cruising downhill toward that intersection where Broad Branch and Nevada come together below Politics & Prose, spied a mysterious alley under heavy foliage, and decided to see where it led. It led me to a LEAF!!! My 28th leaf of the day!!! Okay, so by this time it was after midnight, so I guess I'll just count it toward my season total (30) and be satisfied. I didn't see a single leaf for the rest of the run but what the heck, it was a beautiful warm evening, and when I got home there would be a bagel with lox and ice cream with hot fudge sauce and half a can of cranberry sauce that needed eating. The perfect night run after a long leafy day. In my mind, the moonlight was magical.