Williamsburg Heat

For me, there are few things more refreshing than running through Colonial Williamsburg on a fall evening or running through Matoaka Trails on an early morning during the spring semester. There is really no better way to clear your mind, see the landscape and enjoy some recreation.

Running in the summer, just around noon… could very well be one of the worst possible ways to do this.

Let me explain. My summer roommate and I have decided to run a half marathon. Although both involved in high school athletics and active participants in both club and intramural sports here at the college, we are a bit out of running shape. And by a bit out of shape, I mean a lot out of shape. It’s been rough. For the most part we have attempted to run in the early morning and evening. It might have been a pretty pleasant morning run, if we had woken up before noon. What do you get when you combine a college sleep schedule with half marathon training? A nearly unbearable afternoon run (well, more like a slow jog). By the time we had run an experimental campus loop and rounded out the Sunken Gardens, we were pretty well exhausted.

Enter wedding guests.

Wandering down Richmond Road, seeking the Wren building, they spotted us. Normally, both my roommate and I love to talk to tourists, visiting students and any other guests to campus. But normally, we aren’t gasping for breath after an embarrassingly slow run. Gasping out directions and lifting our hands off our heads, just long enough to point, we gave some pretty incoherent directions.

In Williamsburg, in the center of all things hospitable and friendly, of course, the guests smiled and nodded as if they understood. We looked on, a little helplessly; as we watched the guests wander away, knowing that we were not the last students they would be stopping for directions.