The girl in blue...

So, the humidity was soupy (76%) but the temperature wasn't bad for my first attempt at the US Naval Academy bridge challenge I discussed earlier. As you may recall, the 5k run requires crossing the bridge four times and there is an uphill climb each of those four passes. The first couple crossings were fine, the third started to burn and I had to prod myself to continue upward, and I took a short break during the fourth...like one minute. All in all it was a good run, though I think I spent the next several hours sweating as a result. Yeah, gross, I know.

Finishing the task is definitely the point of doing the challenge, but would be relatively boring to write about again and again. Let me tell you about the girl in blue last night...

On my first pass over the bridge I ran into a girl wearing turquoise blue running clothes just watching the sunset with her ipod at the crest of the bridge. As I passed, she looked over and smiled. You would expect that of anyone you pass running, at least in the friendly town of Annapolis.

That same girl in blue was still there when I made the second pass over the bridge. This time, however, she had climbed over the edge of the bridge and was sitting on the concrete under the railing with her feet dangling over the river. I wanted to say "Girl, do you know how high it is? And oh by the way, the threat of gusts up the river." The crest of the bridge is 75 feet above the Severn River navigation channel. That is really high.

So during this pass, the girl looked back over her shoulder at me once, maybe twice. I looked over my shoulder many more times than that wondering just what the heck she was doing. Was she a jumper? A thrill seeker? Casual observer looking to get off the bridge walk path? Each time I looked back she was still there showing no signs of climbing back over the railing.

On the third pass she was gone. Now, I'm not going to speculate about what happened to the girl in blue (okay, maybe just a little). When I crested the bridge again I didn't see her running down the other side or even up Routes 450 or 648. Nor did I see any police action which would indicate she had an accident (though I was passed by the same county police cruiser three times and that cruiser ended up going down into Jonas Green Park below the north side of the bridge but without any lights on). I guess we'll never know what happened to the girl in blue, though since there was no police report about a jumper we can safely assume she made it home last night.