The Motor City: Where Public Transit Is Against the Law

Back from our weekend wedding adventure to Detroit and I am ever so happy to be back on the East Coast. Don't get me wrong; I'm not an Eastern snob who thinks that the vast expanse of the country between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is full of hicks and Red state idiots. Not at all, as my wife and her family are from Cincinnati and I have always enjoyed my visits to the middle of the country.

However, I like the tenor of life here in the East and prefer it to the Midwest. And while I only saw a small sliver of the Detroit metro area (I would have liked to have seen downtown Detroit, for example), I can safely say that I like living in a city here I can walk everywhere I need to go or that I can take trains further afield. If you don't on a car in Detroit, you are literally stranded. Everywhere we needed to go this weekend was 30-40 minutes away, which is really FAR for a city dweller such as me. I'm already mad that my walking commute to the office each day will grow by about 10 minutes when e move to our new tower next week.

I did get a run in over the weekend, though. I did a brief 3.5 mile run from our hotel through a neighborhood nearby and ended at a local Starbucks for a 0.5 mile cool down walk back to the hotel. The weather was fantastic for both the wedding and the run: sunny, low humidity and in the mid 70's in the day, high 50's in the mornings.

The run was good and I only needed to stop once to figure out which way I wanted to run. I basically stuck to my MapMyRun.com route and only overshot by a tenth of a mile, finishing at 3.6 miles. Not bad. It was relatively early in the morning (8:00 AM) so car and foot traffic was light and I only saw one other runner. On a Sunday morning in Baltimore, I'll usually see scores of people (mostly down around the Harbor) running or walking but it could have just been I was in a neighborhood that lacked runners. I did run past several vocal dogs ho were not happy to see a runner encroaching on their yards though.

I had meant to get up today and run but I've been dragging all day and ran out of time. So, I'll get up tomorrow and get a few miles under my weekly belt. Unfortunately, it's back to the grind tomorrow and I won't have another holiday break until Thanksgiving since the market's next holiday is Thanksgiving. This is probably the longest drought period for a holiday, sadly.