COL aside, your QOL is all about the commute. Everything else is secondary. If you can somehow manage a work/home/daycare/pool situation that's inside a small bubble, DC is a very enjoyable place. If not....

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This.

DC's a pretty athletic place, lots of swimming, biking, running, and tri communities with which to get engaged.

Lots of pools, though they tend to be pretty crowded. Open-water swimming opportunities aren't great.

Decent bike lanes and some good dedicated bike paths, whose accessibility obviously depends on your location.

Good to great running paths, of course depending on your location.

Weather is not ideal but manageable--pretty hot and humid summers, great springs and falls, winters that may be compatible with some outdoor running, depending on how you feel about cold-temperature running, but probably not biking.

Compared to Florida, I think hot and humid aren't that bad ;)
Work would be downtown DC. Living one of the cities I mentioned. Alexandria seems nice and riding to work seems pretty easy.

dude, didn't you ask the same question elsewhere?

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...s_P6526516/#p6526516

only other thing i'll add (which i might not previously mentioned in the other thread) is that you'll pay an annual vehicle tax when living in VA. My Camry that sold for $1800 was appraised at $4500, and I needed to pay 5% of that appraised value.

Also, you'll crush the Hain's Point noon rides

I live in Arlington (Ballston area). The Washington-Lee pool has great hours and there's easy access to bike/run trails. You can metro (Orange/Silver lines) to work pretty easily if you'd like. Honestly, if you live in Ballston, Courthouse, Clarendon, or Rosslyn then the bike commute to downtown DC won't be too bad. I work in Arlington, so I can't speak to the specifics of the commute to downtown.

I lived in Bethesda before I moved to Arlington. I'm military, so I was able to swim on base and didn't have to bother with civilian pools. There are pools/masters groups in that area (Ancient Mariners and some others). The Capital Crescent Trail runs from Bethesda to Georgetown, so bike commuting to downtown is pretty easy.

I bike commuted the 12 miles from Bethesda to Arlington for a couple months before moving to Arlington. QOL was taking a hit.

Like others have said, lot of SBR people and clubs here. I'm in the DC tri club. Let me know whether you have any more questions.

I did ask. But now that things are firm, I'm just getting additional data points!

Bethesda to Georgetown daily for me via CCT. Great commute. Easy to extend the ride as needed for training. HP laps are fun, have never ridden with the noon groups. Last few winters haven't been too bad for the bike.

Lots of running routes. Really good amount of trails to run if that is your thing.

Pools - I swim at GU, Bethesda Y, and a local swim club in the summer. Year round heated outdoor pool at the Y.

Do you work / study at GU?

Yes. Hoya Saxa!

To echo what others have said, it's no Boulder, but there really are a lot of great pools, routes and trails for training.


In terms of bike commuting, the infrastructure is terrific if you're in DC or one of the close-in suburbs (Alexandria, Arlington, Bethesda, etc). I really enjoy my commute from Arlington to Bethesda; a major plus in terms of QOL for me. Getting to and around downtown is also easy on a bike, and often faster than by car. The further out you go the more hit or miss it'll be depending upon how near you are to a major trail system (W&OD, Capital Crescent, Custis, Mt Vernon, Metropolitan Branch). WABA is the local bike association and would be a decent place to look for commuting routes before settling on a place if that's your thing. http://www.waba.org/.../maps-and-documents/. Hains Point, MacArthur Blvd and W&OD are nice for longer or weekend rides.


The local race scene is good as well. VTSMTS produces a number of well run races, many of which are easily drivable on race morning from DC. There are also a number of independent races around the region. The sole race within DC is fun to check out, but can be very hit or miss, unless you prefer duathlons.

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tricalculator.com

Ah, fantastic! The maps are super useful. I'm definitely leaning (I mean, my friend, since asking for a friend :) ) towards Bethesda. Especially after hearing about an annual car tax. Did I read that right? ~5% per year??

I've got a friend who lives in Arlington (last I checked) and works at a university in NE DC. Been there 8-10 years after growing up in Michigan and grad school at UIUC, and he loves his life there.

He doesn't do any endurance workouts, he's a bear who spends his time in gyms.

I used to live in North Arlington and it was not quite a triathletes dream, but it more than met the requirements of a great training place. The Washington and Old Dominion bike path was world class, runs from DC all the way out to Purcellville (I think roughly 80-90 miles roundtrip). Obviously there are some less experiences cyclists on the path, but for the most part it's a great place to train (Do a max effort on the difficult run section of the W&OD).

Swimming is a dream, there are three pristine high schools that all have beautiful pools and the admission price is very reasonable. Unfortunately, open water swimming is kind of limited to Lake Anna, which is a bit of a drive.

Running is very much like cycling, mostly on the recreation paths. Not a lot of dirt trails in the DMV area, at least not on the NOVA side.

It's a great place and there's tons of bike shops all along the trail in case something ever happens. The other thing to mention is that the Virginia Maryland Tri Series puts on great events (a ton of them) at really reasonable prices.

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Team Zoot 2023

It's not that simple. There's 'relief' (ie. tax breaks) for the first 20K of value. Here's an example:
https://www.alexandriava.gov/CarTax
and
https://www.loudoun.gov/index.aspx?NID=1625

I have a 2010 Toyota Highlander, it's about about $250 / year. Overall, I don't like paying it. I dislike it enough that I've not bought a new car on a number of occasions. It's probably saved me money in the long run.

I have a 2016 GLC300 Benz. Seems it would be over $1,000 per year. Definitely a deterrent.

C&O Canal is great for trail running and riding... and within 45 min of driving, you have so many good gravel trails in Loudoun that you can do a couple of easy centuries.

I lived in Bethesda in the '80s and '90s but knew lots of peeps in VA. The car tax is one thing, but MD gets you in other ways, so it's not necessarily true that MD's cheaper - in fact, back then at least those in VA seemed slightly better off tax-wise. The District was the worst in that respect, actually. No real data since then, since I've moved on to even higher-tax places (Bay Area and Hawaii). :-)

Running and tri scenes were good even back then.

Ian

Its a fantastic running city. Tons of great options pretty much anywhere. The cycling is bad. If you live in NOVA, you pretty much have to ride out the bike trail to Leesburg for anything decent. On the Maryland side, it's out McArthur only then you have some OK options once you get to Potomac.

Washington-Lee is the best pool in the area, but extremely crowded in the morning. There will be 4-5 lanes of fast swimmers on the regular basis so its not too hard to find a good lane.

There is a pretty strong triathlon community with tons of good local races through VTSMTS and plenty of face folks

Lived in Alexandria for a year; lots of access to running and biking trails; (Haines Pointe seemed like a weekend mecca of triathletes and bikers and runners (pancake flat 3.2ish mile loop). Additionally, the Virginia Maryland Triathlon Series (VTMS) has a ton of races with plenty of other racing available as well. Mark

The Bethesda YMCA has a heated outdoor pool. Last I checked, they told me as long as the deck is not snow or ice covered it is open. Georgetown Prep also has a nice pool. Some open water swimming can be found in the bay. I know of one training group for the bay swim. I see a group of 20-30 swimmers every spring getting some long swims in on the weekend.

The Capital Crescent Trail would be the best bike route into DC. I can't imagine riding on the roads.

As others have said, the VMTS races are great. They start them a little later in the morning so you can check in race day without having to make it an overnight trip.

Also, Parvilla Cycle runs a monthly TT in Davidsonville MD starting in April. It's usually the first Wednesday of the month and is a lot of fun.