A Tale of Two Hills: Northwest DC Run

After two years away, which included a major detour up to Boston, I'm back in my natural habitat: summertime-ing in Northwest DC!

Rock Creek Park

In some ways I feel like my life has come full circle since I first moved here in 2009, but we'll call this the 2.0 version -- aka mostly the same but better. I'm living in the same general neighborhood, but there are more/new restaurants and bars; my new office is across the street from where I worked in 2009, but now I actually care about and enjoy my job; the running options are the same (some things never change), but now thanks to grad school and DC friends moving, I have even more people to run with!

This morning I ran with Chris (remember when he blogged last summer??? That was great). We did a loop that I think of as "my morning 7-miler" from when I lived in Dupont. It's the perfect mix of roads (with very few stoplights), trails, bikepath, flats and hills.

This morning's route was a little different from the Dupont version because we started closer to Colombia Heights, and a lot different because we ran it clockwise. You might be thinking yeah ok whatevs, clockwise/counterclockwise nbd at all, but let me tell you: this is a hilly neighborhood and direction matters. Our run this morning included what I might deem excessive uphill: the long gradual climb up Connecticut Avenue from Woodley Park to the Zoo then from Cleveland Park to Tilden Road, then the incredibly epic Rock Creek Parkway hill to get from the bike path up to Calvert Road (I die every time), plus (bonus hill!) that goshdarn last little bit on Colombia Road to get from Adam's Morgan to Colombia Heights.

But don't let the hilliness deter you! (And this coming from the girl who hates hills.) They're good for us -- everyone knows that running hills makes you faster. Also if you are recovering from a knee problem (like Chris and me siiiigggh), uphill is actually way more comfortable than downhill.

Happy Running!

Here it is on MapMyRun.

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