Apparently today is the official DC Emancipation Day and as such all DC public offices and services are closed for the day. Of course this would be no big deal normally and wouldn’t even cause me to blink an eye but unfortunately today I blinked. With my quickly filling schedule and busy nights lately I’ve been struggling to find time to get over to the pool to get in laps, especially since the Marie Reed Center pool is only really open from 3pm to 8pm and any time after 6 the lanes are uncomfortably full for me at this point in my training.
Last night I finally decided to bite the bullet and forego the extra hour of sleep and bike to the Takoma Community Center whose pool opens at 6am on weekdays. So come 5:15 I was rolling out of bed and 5:30 I was rolling up 16th St into the headwinds from hell with memories of early morning crew practice running through my head (except then I had a car and drove to practice). The ride there was actually not nearly as bad as I expected and I was able to safely ride up 16th street and over on Van Buren St with the only issues being the occasional blast of wind and the typical SUV blowing by in a coffee and war fueled rush to get to it’s next destination.
I got to the center 10 minutes early after my great warm-up ride and decided to ride loops around the building to keep from cooling down too much before the doors opened and when I finally rolled up to the front door and saw the signs I just wanted to kick myself. Who knew today was emancipation day anyway? I mean I guess if I watched the news every once in a while I’d have heard (though even wapo's description didn’t make me think the pool would be closed), but then I’d have to watch about this shooting and that robbery and the other natural disaster killing how many people? No thanks.
So, instead of my invigorating morning swim, this morning I got a nice, almost car free commute with a handful of extra miles and I’ll get a good core workout today for lunch. Unfortunately I couldn’t even go run when I got in an hour earlier then I planned since I don’t have any running gear here at work. Oh well, I guess if I can get out of bed again tomorrow morning then I’ll have to try it again.
To make things worse for this Emancipation Day, I doubt they'll have a great turnout with this gloomy weather we're calling spring.
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