Figure 8

or 2 for the price of one.

Ran the four mile loop out to Brown St. and 51st w/ E, the same loop we ran on Wednesday. My legs felt better and the split for this loop, 35:20, is a bit faster than what I ran on then.

E went home to rest her hip and I ran the top half of the figure 8, going up Warrington to 57th, and back down on Thomas and then Cedar.

West Philly streets feel like a checkerboard but they are actually several checkerboard arrangements juxtaposed on each other at somewhat different angles. As a result you get large spaces between streets that you think are closer together, and all sorts of space to explore between these streets. Thomas St. is one of those interstitial streets that I didn't know existed until I started running it. This morning I was heading east on Thomas and the headwind brought a wonderful bakery scent to me. I couldn't figure out where that smell could have come from until I went around a bend and there was a little bakery - still shuttered up but apparently someone was at work.

Reminded me of spending summers in Germany as a boy, where one of the errands I used to have was to pick up bread from the bakery before breakfast. I'd enter around the back because the store part wouldn't be open yet.

I'll have to retrace my steps and check the place out some time when its open.

Here is a question for any historians who might be reading. How did Philadelphia streets get wide enough for two way traffic and parking on each side (i.e., four lanes) when most of them were built in a time when the automobile traffic of today could not have been anticipated.