With cherry blossom time upon us, the best way to appreciate the beauty of the Sakura (cherry blossom viewing) while avoiding troublesome tourists is to run.
I don’t mean run from the tourists (though you could and maybe should do that too) – I mean go for a run. Because while walking the Tidal Basin on a weekend afternoon is an ambitious project (due to aforementioned tourists), running it is a simple Tuesday mileage run.
The mileage you do depends on where you start, and/or how many times you want to run around the Tidal Basin. The loop itself is about 1.8 miles. (You can’t run in front of the Jefferson Memorial right now because of construction, so you have to stay on Ohio Drive behind it.)
If you want to make the route into a longer and more intense cherry blossom experience, start at the Smithsonian Metro Station and add on a loop around Haines Point, making it a 6.4-mile run.
If you’re me and it’s this morning and it’s cold and windy, but also beautiful and sunny, and you’re starting from Dupont Circle, and you want to see cherry blossoms but you don’t want to run too too long, this loop is about 6.2 miles.
And finally, if you’re almost me (i.e. starting from Dupont) but you managed to wake up earlier and have more energy than I did today (i.e. beating me at life), you can tack on a couple miles and make it into an 8.66-mile loop.
Enjoy!