JUL-A-4
It was not easy getting out of bed when the alarm went off at 4:00 AM on the holiday almost everyone around here, except, presumably, the park police, have off. The night had been cool and rainy, as predicted after a rather glorious day that had preceded the holiday. The humidity had been close to 100% for two weeks as I had been doing my “Triple H” runs---hot, humid and hilly. But, I had promised Joe I would take him out on a long “point to point” run, a kind he had never done before, before I rejoined the family a bit later in the day to take them out on the traditional picnic in the park and carrying the kids with me to the fireworks. He had called, still unsure, and did not know even when he was in the Bronco at 6:00 AM whether he would just rather do the more comfortable back and forth run from Ken-Gar which we have done countless times. It was only at the point of turning off Wisconsin Ave onto either Beech Drive to go to Ken-Gar or continuing on to Grosvernor off Tuckerman Lane, that he said “Well, let’s try this Point-to-Point you have been talking about, and we will see how I feel as we go along.” We did it.
I had done an 8-mile run the day before at Needwood, watching the park maintenance group pick up one of four deer carcasses reported for the day. One of the four had been shot, so that one thy reported, as it had been found bobbing in Lake Needwood, but the others seem to have been victims of car collisions. I talked with the crew and they were interested to know that I live in the woods at what is the origin of Rock Creek and the dammed segment that is Lake Needwood. When it turned out that I was a deer hunter and thought the population of the deer in the area was too high anyway, the one fellow was especially eager to know me, since he would like to go bowhunting on my property, which he said was big enough that I could hunt any time legally myself.
He said that there was someone who had entered Needwood at night and used a jacklight to shoot and leave ten deer, which is a criminal waste even if there are too many of them. He said that a group of government types had gone out along Tuckerman Lane without notifying anyone, and with infrared and silencers they had quietly shot 80 deer, which is about the only population control the deer here would have other than the automobile, but they had done it the right way, using a biologist to weigh and measure the deer and gut and package them for the same hunters for the hungry that I had donated my deer to from the Little Bennett State Park controlled hunt several years ago. I had seen at least twenty deer on my eight mile run in the middle of the day. This was the last of three times I ran with the Nonin Pulse Oximeter, so as to get some experience with it for the climbing and running at Himalayan altitude. I was still listening to “Scandalmonger” audiobook by William Safire as a patriotic way to segue into the fourth of July, in hearing stories about the origin of the US with the personal and political tensions among Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Burr, Hamilton, Madison, Monroe and their confreres.
So, Joe and I suited up for the P-t-P from Grosvernor, where I left the Bronco. I pulled the fanny packs I had from the back, and each of the were packed with gloves, headbands, and earmuffs for another time of year, at least six months back when I had done the last P-t-P run. I surely would not need them today. I emptied the winter stuff out of the bigger one, and stuffed the two dry shirts and the Metro cards and some more money in each, and even left the camera in it. I calculated how many water stops we would be encountering, and elected not to take a water bottle because of the frequent fountains if all of them were working. It was not yet 6:15 AM nor light when we took off.
I kept Joe close to me on the short leash, as I was encountering a lot of puddles along the trail, so I stayed up along Beach Drive. We were still too early for any traffic and I knew that Rock Creek Drive is closed off to vehicle traffic and left to bikers and runners on the weekends and holidays. So, we ran along the usual landmarks that Joe can about tell by sound and smell if I give him a frequent mile marker count and a time check. We came to the stables, our usual pit stop, and turnaround point, and kept on going, for Joe’s first entry into the DC line and on to Rock Creek Drive. We waved to the Park Police who were just coming in for report on their big day and deployed on motorbikes.
When we came to Pierce Mill, the last of the Rock Creek Grist Mills, operating because the NPS had restored it, though we pass the ruins of Adams Mill and a number of others that are evident only because of the roaring waterfalls over their coffer dams, we encountered our first big group. There were about fifty bikers about to set out on a ride, many of them wearing the jersey of the AIDS Riders. A number of the young women in the group were very interested in me and Joe as we came around them jumping curbs with elbow guidance, as they figured out what our status was as well as from the soaking wet running gear that we had come as far on the run as they would be gong on their bikes.
A lot of people gave us a wide clearance and a salute in response to Joe’s cheery “Good Morning,” and you could see them double take and then burst into admiring smiles. Joe and I had a long talk along the way about peoples’ reaction to blindness and my own friendship and guide runner status which he appreciated—he said—perhaps until I passed the Zoo Connecticut Avenue “bail out point at 14 miles as he began to fade and I told him we were going to stretch the distance to GW, 16 miles today, and we would pull that envelope out even further to 18 miles on the weekend in his second P-t-P. He may have had some second thoughts about how he had earlier said that I had brought out the best in him, since I noted the chatter from his direction slowed down at the 15 mile point with a speed that backed off to the 11 minute mile pace which disappointed him as he began talking to himself: “Come on Josephus, you can do it…..”
I had told him about the “aqueducts” which are bridges that carry water over the streams and rivers that empty into the Potomac, the water they carry high above Rock Creek being the water supply to the city pumped in from Great Falls and at Little Falls pumping station, these aqueducts being the graceful products of Civil War era engineering and design, hard at work every day, even carrying roadways on top of them—such as Cabin John Parkway. But the last of the aqueducts to carry the end of the C & O Canal over a stream is the Rock Creek Aqueduct which would be at the place that Rock Creek debouches into the Potomac River and that historic site, opened on this day July 4, 1828 would be our end-point for the day.
And it was. We stopped to admire the junction of the muddy brown Rock Creek water entering the surprisingly blue Potomac. The Rock Creek had been roaring along at our side and as we crossed and re-crossed it at least eight times in our run down its length. Whole branches and logs were tumbling down the white water of Rock Creek, which is typically a little trickle along side picnic tables in the p[ark when little kids can sit on rocks in the stream bed. Not today. It made a very god “white noise beacon” for Joe as he would orient to the noisier traffic on Rock Creek Parkway—often to our left, and the Creek, to our right, as we counted off the miles in our P-t-P. I had promised hi that we would be exiting at GWU/Foggy Bottom Metro station, so, we had essentially “run to work” from upper Montgomery County on a day when most people working there (except for the new interns and residents) would not had to go to work in mid-week.
Joe’s original goals had been to get on our way home before ten o’clock and to run not more than three hours. We crossed the Rock Creek Aqueduct at our stopping point at 2:51 and were already transferred out of Metro Center at 10:00 AM. When we stopped at the Potomac to change into the dry shirts brought along in my fanny pack, a fellow who was watching offered to take our picture so that Joe’s first point to point could be recorded at its finish; he said “I could not make it half that distance if pulled by a diesel truck!” Joe and I bought Gatorade and hot pretzels at the little kiosk at GWU, and made it back home for showers, dropping him off just as the kids were getting up to see what they could do to get ready for the later holiday events. A bit of later cloudiness and rain may dampen a few fireworks, but we will see what develops after each of us takes the inevitable ten minute post-shower power nap.
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