So this afternoon, I was out for a nice leisurely run. It was one of those runs where I wasn't really focused on the running and was more pounding the pavement to do some problem solving. Nothing shakes new ideas loose like a few easy miles.


Plus I was trying out this new pair of Brooks that I got sent to test. Pretty huh?

So I was off in la-la-land in my head, on total auto-pilot on one of my regular 3.5 mile loops, when all of a sudden, I run into a police barricade, blocking off the way I needed to go.

In my head, I thought, well that's kind of annoying, but whatever, diverting around closed roads is nothing new when you run in DC. (Hello, motorcades). So I turn down a side street figuring I'll cut up the next block.

Turns out that's blocked off too, and at this corner there were way more cops (and maybe some military folks, they definitely looked to be in military uniforms and not police uniforms, but I didn't have my contacts in, so couldn't totally be sure).

I stopped to ask one of the cops if I could cut up to the main street. He looked at me like I had five heads, but nicely said no and told me to keep going down the block.

I did eventually, but not before I took a good long, half-blind look up the street (really wishing I had my contacts in at this point) and saw a couple of police vehicles. At this point, I was thinking, oh man there's totally a gas leak. That's not good, better get a move on.

Well ya'll turns out, it wasn't a gas leak. When I got home and did some Googling, I found out my neighborhood beer store had been robbed earlier this morning and the cops killed one of the robbers during a shoot-out. So, yea...that's why the roads were all closed. The crazy thing is, I had seen this headline earlier in the morning, but didn't pay attention to where it had happened, so I was basically clueless it wasn't far from my house.

Also, let's just say I'm really, really glad I didn't do my run this morning like I normally do because uh, was definitely thinking about running at like 9 a.m., which would have put me right near that beer store when this was all going down.

So yep, that's my Monday, and that's crazy, and I'm going to stop writing now and come back another day this week with something more cheerful I hope.