Long Walks On Leafy Streets

2/4/2014 Rock creek Park, Washington, DC
I went for a run this morning around my neighborhood. It was in the thirties and I just had my sweatshirt and a knit-cap on. After the first five to ten minutes the body warmed up nicely. I was able to run a better time today. I went through parts of Takoma Park after crossing Eastern Ave, going through Poplar, Lee and Maple streets. It is a very hilly route, constantly going up and down. It has become my regular route. I don’t make as good a time on it as I would on a level route or on a track but I enjoy the challenge of it. I have been running two to three times now quite regularly, through all kinds of weather. I think running in extremely cold weather might have really boosted my energy levels. Perhaps the more challenge your body overcomes the stronger it becomes, although I must say I run only about 3 miles or for about half an hour at a time. They also say that the more the body is exposed to the weather the more it adapts to it.
Not only do I run but I also walk quite a bit, every week. These days I feel quite comfortable in fifty or sixty degree weather.
It rained a lot yesterday. I had to hold an umbrella up while walking, almost all the way to campus. The rains have washed away pretty much all the snow. The lake near campus had almost completely frozen over last week. On Friday I saw hundreds of birds, mostly gulls and Canada geese, hanging around on the ice. It had been very cold most of last week, and the winds had calmed down a bit, so that must have helped to freeze the water. Yesterday most of the ice had melted and there were just a few floating blocks where the birds congregated. Although this unusually cold weather is an indicator of climate change, I was still happy to see the lake freeze over because it hadn’t happened in the past several years.
On Saturday I went hiking in Rock Creek Park. It was actually a hike I had organized for my meetup group. But because I announced it very late only a few people signed up and even they dropped out for various reasons. Nicole had another engagement, so I ended up hiking by myself. It turned out to be a really great afternoon in the woods. Although Rock Creek Park is in the middle of our city, sometimes you don’t quite feel it, especially in the section where I was hiking. There was still snow in the parts that were less exposed to sun. At the beginning of the hike along the Melvin Hazen tributary there was a lot of ice on the trail and the ground was treacherous, but afterwards it got easier. I took more than fifty photos, one of which is on this page. More pictures are on my Flickr page. You can get there by clicking on the little photo on the top left of this page. The rock creek itself was frozen in parts. It was clear people had been skating on it a little bit, although I didn’t see anyone skating at that time. As you know the surface of water freezes first, so the stream was flowing under the ice. In some places parts of the ice had melted leaving chunks of it holding on to rocks. I was fascinated by the interplay between the ice, water and sunlight.
There were quite a few people out on the trails, as it was a much warmer day than the days preceding it. After the hike I went to Coffy Café in Columbia Heights. I lived in Columbia Heights for about nine years before moving here. Coffy Café has become my regular hangout when I go there. I like the seventies themed décor and the friendly staff. A group of people at the nearby plaza area was singing songs of Pete Seeger. I was really touched. A crowd had gathered around them. Pete Seeger to me was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. I heard of him first from my friend Chris McCarthy who has named his son Seeger. I love his simple, down to earth lifestyle and lifelong quest to inspire people to do better by their fellow human beings. He lived most of his life on a farm in New York. Although I have spent most of my life in the cities, not moving around much, there is a part of me that wants to wander around the world talking to different people and also to live the simplest, most earth friendly and closer to nature life as possible.

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