As you probably know, I lived in D.C. for seven years before moving to NYC two years ago. I had lots of friends in D.C., but I just wasn’t happy. Part of this was that I was unhappy with my body, but part of it was that it just wasn’t the right place for me. But I still love going back to see friends.

I lived in the Chinatown area of D.C., so most of my favorite restaurants were around there (though it’s called Chinatown, the actual “Chinatown” part of it is only about a block long, so not all of my favorite restaurants were Chinese!), Dupont or Georgetown. Around when I was leaving, the Eastern Market/Barracks Row area was starting to boom. My friend Kat lives there now, and so we headed out for dinner on Saturday night. My friends let me, being the out-of-towner, pick the restaurant. My only criteria was that it was some place I hadn’t been before. I LOOOOOOVE Matchbox, but I had been there a million times, so I decided on Cava, a Greek tapas bar. We started with tzatziki:

I got zucchini fritters:

And the kokkinisto, or braised short ribs…over french fries. I was craving both beef and salt, so this hit the spot. I didn’t even need to eat much of it:

I had a drink before dinner and a drink with dinner and stopped at that, because I knew I had to run yesterday morning.

Tamsin (yes, she’s the one in the bad-ass glasses) I met up with one of my favorite bloggers, the fabulous Anne P. (yes, I read a ton of blogs) at the Georgetown Waterfront this morning. Anne and I have been e-mail and Twitter buddies for quite a while, so it was awesome to finally meet in real life. Like anyone else I’ve met through blogging, we gabbed the entire time like we’d known each other for years.

We went on part of the Capital Crescent Trail and C&O Canal Trail. When I had thought about running a marathon in 2005, I had attempted to run on these trails and it just sucked. It was awesome to come back and just dominate those trails yesterday. From reading Anne’s blog, I know she’s a little speed demon, so I was worried about keeping up with her. (I definitely ran a little faster than usual, but I didn’t have trouble keeping up.)

Tamsin, Anne and I all ran together for the first three, then Anne and I for the next 3, and then I ran alone along the National Mall for the last 3, smiling as I past the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and got a view of the Capitol—things I took for granted while I lived there. I was supposed to run another 4 miles after finishing the portion with Anne, for a total of 10, but I definitely hadn’t properly fueled, and pushing myself running with Anne led to nothing left in my gas tank by the end of the run, so I ran a total of 9. I’ll add an extra mile in to another one of my runs this week. 

(Anne’s not saluting; it was really sunny out.)