6.5 M to Prospect Hill and back - ligaments are a bit pulled after Sunday run in Blue Hills

Long time no postings

Derry 16M three weeks ago were a blast even though very cold. Gatorade was warmed up. It was real nice. Since then I've built up my mileage up to upper thirties mostly by back to back 12+ runs on weekend. Some runs are fast, some are hilly. Yesterday in Blue Hills were a real adventure: icy + uneven.

Winter wonderland

Running 12 miles over 8 inches of fresh snow. Wow! It was quite a workout. A lot of Boston marathon jackets on the course like harbinger of approaching spring. It's the Wellesley-Newton border on the picture -- Mile 16. That's where Lance Armstrong passed me last year. He had a larger entourage than Obama at his inauguration ceremony. I don't even know which one was him -- so many yellow jerseys.

But back to snowy winter: hats and brows covered by snow, wet socks, slipping on the uphills, struggling nervous drivers honking, sidewalks covered by snow, snow was falling all along.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

6.5 + 4 + 9.5. Fun and cold freaking days. I have just realized that there are only 10 weeks left till Boston, 3 weeks of coasting before the event don't count.

A lot of people were running today along Comm Ave. Some even tried to be competitive. Oh well ... This building is the most famous building along the Boston marathon route. It's after mile 17 and that's where chicken come home to roost. 200 yards to the left is the first of Newton Hills. So get ready. It's a good place to hit the wall or to start walking.

Many groups start their training runs here. Runners say that there is a bathroom in the building, but others suspect it's an urban legend. It's 1.5 mile from my home and the place where I choose to break the sweat.

The road were pretty clean, an icy patch here and there, but ... ironically the worst maintained patch is 300 hundred yards next to the Newton City Hall. Two Johny Kellys half-naked look as if they just ran on snow covered surface.

The Big Snow Run

And a run it was. It was so cold that most people haven't waited for official start time and started earlier. There were about eighty runners overall and they were dropping as flies in the winter. It was more fun this way though. First three loops were very social cause I'd pass someone new every 5-10 minutes. First two loops I ran with young guy named Phillip. He was cheerful fella, but decided to slow down for his last third 10K loop. And then it was all downhill from there. I mean ... slower, slower, and even slower. At the end I ran 35 minutes slower than last year. It's a bitter pill, I guess lack of training really pays off. The only consolation is that the first guy ran much slower than last year too (not as much).

4 miles in the dark

This week I'm half tapering, half straight lazy. 50K on the snow are coming on Saturday -- Fat Ass in Topsfield. I might bail after 30 or 40K -- we'll see how it goes. Last year the full distance took 4:40 or so. It supposed to be pretty cold so snow will be hard and possibly icy.

Tempo through Weston

It's another sunny crispy day in Boston, 17 degrees or about, some wind. 11 miles in 83 minutes from Jon's house through Weston Center, Pigeon Hill and back.

Uneventful, fast, good effort, rolling hills ...

Blue Hills in The Snow

It was a beautiful sunny day with temperature just below freezing.

1:50 over the hills and through the woods who knows how many miles, from the police station along Skyline Trail and Red Dot lollipop.

Snow was just a couple of inches deep and just few spots were icy. There were plenty of hikers. A few people in snowshoes complained of not enough snow, but lumbered along. It was pretty funny to watch a sporty looking people with big and bulky snowshoes struggling on the trail. We even saw some cross country skiers that were moving very cautiously on the flat open trail.

At the end of the run, we were certainly happy that we were wearing our Yak Traxs, and managed to move along fairly quickly, and only got slightly wet feet through a few running brooks that weren't frozen.

New Year - New Life

The New Year started and thus the new cycle of getting ready for Boston Marathon.

About 8 miles in about 64 minutes along Comm Ave from Star Market to Hammond Street and back.

The day was perfect for that: 4-6 inches of fresh snow yesterday, temp 17 with windchill factor about zero. But reality was a bit nicer than this grim statistic. The sky was sunny and most of the carriage lane along Comm Ave was clean. There were plenty of runners, up to twenty I guess, one crazy was even running in shorts. I wonder how many of those were victims of their New Year resolution never to be seen again.