The Morning Crew

So I run most mornings in a week. I try to get out the door at 6 am, although 6:30 is more like the typical time. With that said, I'm usually running on the Mall at 7 am, either heading west or, returning home, east.

There's an interesting difference b/w the weekday runners at 7 am and the weekend runners.

The weekday runners tend to be younger, thinner, more buff. My guess is that the typical Mall runner on a weekday (excluding Friday, when there's almost no one out there--where are they?) is a young Hill staffer, or maybe a law student at Georgetown or GW.

The weekend runners are older, thicker, and stranger looking. There are some seriously odd folks hitting the gravel at 7 am on a Saturday or Sunday. I'm talking folks who look like they spend the week locked in a DoD bunker crunching missile defense numbers. Guys from "Mission Control," if you get my drift. The same for the female runners--they aren't as strange, but they tend to be older.

My guess, though, is that the weekenders could take the weekdayers, at least over a long distance. Sure, those fit Hill staffers could outkick me in a mile, but I'd catch up over the long haul. And Mission Control . . . that guy can run forever.