Perfect commute. AR style.

posted by Dima.

I know quite a bit racer working 9 hours a day Monday to Friday. Yep, we have to work hard to pay all these registration fees and to buy expensive gear for races. I also spend 9 hours a day in the lab. I like what I am doing, and when results are good and keep going, I can stay overnight to collect them all. But eventually I have to go home and return next morning. And that’s the problem…

I live 14 miles straight line from my work. Straight line of North-South diagonal of Washington DC, the city of traffic jams, bridges across Potomac and Anacostia rivers, president cortège, wise-president cortège, secretary of state cortège… You cannot drive your car through there and my commute is 30-35 miles each way around the nation capital. The drive takes about 45 minutes in perfect conditions, but perfect conditions do not exist around the capital beltway. That’s why 2 years ago I switched to biking.

I still cannot go straight line because of the rivers, but 16 miles of trails and sidewalks is no so bad and take me about 55-60 minutes. I ride year around, including rainy days, snow and frizzing rain. I learned how to ride my bike in any conditions and have no more crashes during real AR events. But recently I started a new chapter in my commute, turning it into mini adventure races (two per day). Here how it works:

Stage 1: Biking on Capital Crescent trail from Bethesda to Georgetown – 7 miles.

Stage 2: Transition from bike to paddle at the Jack’s boathouse. Thank to Anna, the owner, for nice service of keeping my sea kayak there.

Stage 3: Paddling from Georgetown to BAFB (military base across the national airport) – 6 miles.

Stage 4: Transition from paddling to running at coast guards station (thanks to guards for letting me in).

Stage 5: Running to the lab – 1 mile.

Now my commute is a perfect straight line. And it takes me 90 to 110 minutes depending on wind direction and my spirit to work hard. I am still not doing it every day, alternating with bike only commuting, but as weather gets better, I will try it more often.

By the way, it’s a good training. Try it.

Web updates and snakes from the race course.

We updated the Race Results and the Team section in the top menu. It's almost one year to the new Calleva team. We will skip big races for the next few months, but there are few short races in our plans. 

Last weekend field work was highlighted by this beautiful snake

Three other sisters of this beauty absorbed sun light just feet from the trail. Hopefully they will go deeper into the swamp in August.