Another Beautiful Morning

I absolutely LOVE the weather we are having in the Washington, DC area lately. I swear, it feels like mid-to-late September and not the beginning of August.

I left the house at 6am - sunny skies, no humidity, and very comfortable temperatures in the low 60s. Another awesome morning for running! I just hope that the Kentlands/Lakelands 5K and Parks Half Marathon have beautiful weather like this!

Today was a long, slow run - 70+ min. I ended up running the 7.33 mile loop around the major streets that form the perimeter of my neighborhood and adjacent neighborhoods - Darnestown Road, Great Seneca Highway and Quince Orchard Road.

The great weather conditions contributed to great performance - I maintained an average heart rate of 149 bpm (under 150 for a long run - hooray! just where I should be), at a 10:37/mile pace.

Not much more to report about the run. I did not bring music today - since I took yesterday off to go to Hershey Park I needed to sort through a bunch of things going on at work.

One thing did bother me a bit on my run, though. About 1.5 miles into my run - I was trotting down the sidewalk (against traffic like I should as a runner) on Darnestown Road, when all of a sudden two bicyclists came whizzing past me. On the sidewalk. With no warning. I wasn't even listening to music and I didn't hear these guys coming up behind me.

Let me list the ways this annoyed me: 1) They could have warned me (rang a bell or shouted "on your left!" or "I'm behind you" or something), 2) They were on the wrong side of the road, 3) Darnestown Road has a wider shoulder with a picture of a bicyclist on it...i.e. they should have been using the bike lane in the road instead of the sidewalk.

Am I becoming a cranky old man for being annoyed with them???

Luckily about 2 miles later - when I was on Great Seneca Highway (a road with no "bike lane" and a sidewalk only on one side of the road), another bicyclist was coming up behind me and gave me the "on your left" shout as a warning before passing me. OK...not all bicyclists are evil.