Saturday run

Met with the gang on Saturday at Highbanks: Andy, Bridget, Doug, Bob, Rich, Christy, Mike and Meredith. The consensus was that the trails would be snwy and slick, and Meredith said she was not willing to “break her ass” on the ice, so we ran the roads instead.

We haven’t run the roads at Highbanks for a couple years, I don’t think. I did recall an annoying hill that Mike and Andy had told us ‘would get us ready for Boston’ the first time we attacked it. I wasn’t looking forward to that hill.

The loop on the roads is about 4 miles, so we were going to have to run it three times. I ran with Meredith, comfortably at the back of the pack to start. We were our normal chatty selves, and soon we were kicking it up that dreaded hill. It was actually not too bad! We finished the first loop in 32:xx.

Back at our cars, we met a couple from New Hampshire. They had been trying to meet up with some organized group through a local running store, but they were nowhere to be found, so they ran with us. I realized later the woman and I were wearing the same style shirt! . We were talking about Boston, and the woman had that elitist attitude, “I’ve qualified but I don’t like the idea of all the charity runners so I’d rather do something else”. That’s fine for people to hold that opinion, I just think it’s an interesting one to share in mixed company 🙂

Second loop: 31:xx. The hill got easier! 🙂

Third loop: started to feel a little tired, although Meredith and I led most of the pack this loop. We had a little disagreement about the path we were following, I can’t believe I was so turned around I never realized we ran up and down the same hill in a single loop! But my trying to get my bearings helped the time pass.

Third loop: 31:xx

Overall, a great run! I felt pretty strong, I can only imagine it’s due to the fact I’ve been doing a fair amount of hill workouts on the treadmill. I read that hill workouts are speedwork without the ‘hurt’, which may also be why Thursday’s run went well too.

I only had 24 miles this week, pretty low compared to Meredith’s 36! It’s so strange to think of how dramatically our mileage has creeped up in the past couple years, but it feels pretty good. We are set to do 11 tomorrow. Helen asked me to do 15 on Friday, but that’s what I was planning to do Saturday and I really don’t think I need to do those back-to-back. Ten, maybe 🙂