Long Walks On Leafy Streets

8/7/2016 Vista Sorrento Pkwy, San Diego, CA.
Summer is slowly drawing to a close. I think I can say with fairness that summer is the most enjoyable season of the year for me. Part of the reason is that since I stopped teaching in the summer, around 2001, I can make my own schedule and go for a walk in the middle of the day if I want to. So I start anticipating the arrival of summer and feeling the smell of freedom in the air towards the end of spring. Summer is also the time that I get to go to the beaches and certainly the beach is my favorite place on this planet. I hope eventually I will be able to be so peaceful inside that every moment will feel like a day at the beach but I am not there yet.

This summer, though, has been very different. Although we spent a great week in San Diego we have been mostly staying in DC. I have been going to my office four days a week, working all day on my research. Yet I have enjoyed it quite a bit.
I can say with confidence that this is the first time in my life I have been able to devote so much time and concentrate so well on my research. Although I have not written up a paper yet I feel satisfied with the progress I have made and all the new concepts that I have learnt and understood. Mathematics is truly a garden of enchantment and I can see how certain people get lost in it and spend pretty much all their waking moments happily wandering around among its beautiful flowers.

Another thing I have enjoyed quite a bit is running. As mentioned earlier I am training for a marathon. Currently I am running seven miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays and thirteen miles on Saturdays. I have gotten into the habit of getting up very early in the morning partly because these days we try to get Prashant into his daycare by 9 am. Most days I am up by 6 am. I used to be a night person. Until this summer it was very rare for me to go to sleep before 11 pm or even midnight. But I find that the early dawn hours are equally peaceful and contemplative.

Friday evening I was so tired that I went to sleep by 7.30 and woke up feeling very fresh, around 1.30 am. I could not go back to sleep. Normally on Saturday mornings I start my run around 6 am, especially since it gets so hot later in the day these days. I enjoy running along the Rock Creek and then the Potomac river and then spend some time relaxing under the trees in Dupont Circle before getting home around 10 by the metro train. But yesterday Nicole had to leave home by 8am for her hike with a group of sisters called GirlTrek. So I suddenly got this crazy idea to run on a loop and get home before 7. Initially I dismissed the idea because it meant that I would have to leave home before 5am. It takes me around 2 hours to finish 13 miles, since it is so hot and humid now. But around 2 am I thought, if I was going to be awake I might as well go running.

So I left home around 4.20 and started running down Kansas Ave. It was still dark and there were very few cars about, so I could pretty much run wherever I wanted. I then ran down 14th street. There were some more people around, mostly restaurant and construction workers getting ready. Then I ran down 15th street on the protected bike lane all the way to the tidal basin. By then it was close to 5.30 and I was sweating profusely because the humidity was around 90% even though the temperature was only around 80. It was very nice to see the capitol dome and the Washington monument in the early dawn hours, still lit up in the darkness.

I then turned around and started running up 17th street. Near the White House there were secret service people walking around but otherwise very few people. The early dawn light started brightening up the streets. Now I was running mostly uphill. I started feeling weak and my pace had dropped considerably, although I was still jogging. I started wondering whether running at such an early hour was playing tricks with my body and mind. I have noticed that when I am short on sleep I start feeling out of breath sometimes, due to the lack of oxygen in the brain. I was not sure I could make it all the way home. I ran up 18th street and there were more people there and the restaurants were getting ready for the day. The part of 18th street after U Street was the steepest part of the whole route. Once I got past that the breathing became easier. I was still sweating like crazy and still feeling weak but I was able to maintain my stride and even pick up the pace a little bit. It was a great feeling when I made it home on my own power, albeit in 2hrs and 15 minutes, my worst time so far for 13 miles. It was surely a crazy thing to do, and definitely one of the hardest runs I have done, but I am glad I did it because the memory of that pre-dawn run will remain fresh in my mind for a long time.

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