Forrest Gump-ing

First post of 2013!

You may have noticed that it has recently been cold and snowing. I know, my brain is still stuck on summer too (5 months until tri season!) That also means, I forgot about this little thing called snowboarding. After last year's lack of a winter (I went riding twice) I didn't even think snowboarding would interfere with my marathon schedule. Of course it does!

My mentality has always been that there is a solution to every problem and this solution is to do the long runs on my own. So my last two long runs (12 and 14 miles) have been done not with the team. They actually haven't been too bad. I didn't reason the benefit to living in Brighton is that I can easy run on the course on Beacon and Comm ave and that friends would join me along the way.

Which brings me to my new favorite term: Forest Gump-ing.

The first long run I did alone (12 miles) was done after a mini-annual party at my house in which I didn't go to bed until the wee hours. We also had to drive up to Killington later in that day to start the NYE festivities. There I go on no sleep (people thought I wasn't going to do it pssh) I had company for the first 2 miles, ran 7 alone and then met up with Jenny (yes, nice Forest Gump coincidence) and ran the last 5 with her. I actually used my Garmin, correctly! My phone also died on my way to find Jenny so the last text she got from me was "Ahhhhh". 12 done and done, off to Killington we go!

Quick summary without re-posting photos I already put on fbook: NYE was awesome at the Pickle Barrel (so much flannel!), we stayed in a Snow Dome/Igloo thing with a fire pole going down the middle, crazy fuzzy walls/disco wallpaper in the bathrooms and got stuck in the driveway. Also, DO NOT go snowboarding the day after you run 12 miles. You will finish the day by just putting your knees and head on the ground, thighs burning and just saying WHYYYYYY. Order the Switchback as you cannot buy it at gas stations.

So then this weekend I had to run 14. On Saturday I competed in the Wachusett Winter Wild race and opted for the division called Heavy Metal where you hike up with your board and then snowboard down. It was awesome! Right after I was off for some NH fun time. That meant I needed to run the 14 scheduled miles the next day.

I did a similar thing to the 12 miles. I ran 1.5 alone, ran 5.6 with a friend, and then solo 7. Weird/funny thing about the run last night...I almost fell asleep while running. No lie. I always felt that long runs were like meditating to me and then my mind and body just get calm during them (most of the time.) There I was running up that hill on Beacon St coming from Washington Sq going to Coolidge Corner and I felt my eye lids getting heavy. I realized my eyelids were kinda low and I felt very peaceful like I was just laying down relaxing. Crazy, I know.

After I dropped my friend off back at Cleveland Circle I headed down Comm to run in the carriage lane and get some heartbreak hill action in my run. As I was running by BC, I couldn't help but notice how pretty it was. I thought, what the heck, I'll run through BC. Not really sure where I went but I ran around it a bit and took this pretty picture:

It was cool because the bells were chiming as I was going through.

That brings me to the conclusion and main point of this post (I know, I'm a terrible blogger) I like doing these long runs where I run with different people and just sort of pick them up/drop them off along the way. I kind of feel like Forest Gump when he is just running and all those people just sort of tag along with him. It also breaks the run up when I know I'm meeting this person at Cleveland Circle and then another person at Comm and Center St. It makes the long run more like a social event.

I'm not allowing myself to reschedule any long runs after Jan, however, I do need to reschedule two 10.5 mile runs in Jan! I'm throwing the option out to people to join me for them, for however many miles you would like to do. I don't care if it is 1, 2 or 10 miles, just don't make me stop or else I can't start again haha

Dates for runs:

For this week's sat run I'm thinking of Monday, 1/14, 10.5 miles

And then for then for the Bentley Killington weekend I'm thinking of Monday, 1/28 running 10.5 miles

Comment, fbook, text, send a message carrying alpaca (preferred method) and let me know!

"Life's like a box of chocolates...it doesn't last very long for fat people."  ;)

Let's get running!
-cat