So that's what 20 miles feels like

This past week's long run took us back to Watertown and the Mt. Auburn Club. We hit the same route as last time, but extended it out a bunch. I decided that, once again, I was going to go for another personal milestone and hit 20 miles for the first time. I had built this up as a pretty big deal in my head and was a little nervous about what the next 3 hours was going to present. Only one way to find out....

The weather was pretty nice and the wind, mercifully, was coming at us as we went out from the club for the first half of the run. My goal for the day was to leave a little more in the tank a little bit later than I had on recent long runs. It seemed as if 15 miles had been my threshold related to when I went from feeling OK, to feeling really bad. I wanted to see if I could push that out a bit. As hard I've been trying to do the negative split thing, I'm either too stubborn or too new to this (or both) to achieve that goal. My new goal is to stay as constant as possible related to pace, and make adjustments along the way depending on how I feel. That's probably not the way to do it, but I'll see how it goes.

The run ended being great. It was nice to see more of the actual race route. I had driven these roads 100 times in the past but never thought about what it would be like to run on them. I found myself thinking about things in the past as I ran by the familiar streets and landmarks. Like, how I spent so many hours over 4 years working towards my masters at BC. And, how I hadn't been by Newton-Wellesley Hospital since Audrey was born almost 18 months ago. A little further up was the street where Katie's office used to be when she took a new job and moved back from Manhattan in '98. I'm not sure why I was getting nostalgic, but for some reason, I was.

Without getting into all of the minutiae, I felt great up to Heartbreak Hill (again). I really hit the wall near the top, but at the same time, I was OK with it because it was 16-17 miles into the run vs the usual 15 when I felt like crap. I didn't break any speed records, but I ended up having a good run and finished in a little over 3 hours.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25240480

I can really feel myself starting to get stronger and stronger as the weeks go on. Proof of this is that, for the first time ever, I finished 7 miles on Tuesday in the slop in under 1 hr, which I've never even been able to do running in Falmouth 4 times (a sore spot for me that Mike can attest to). If I can stay injury free, I think I'll be in pretty good shape, even for a rookie.

I've decided that I'm going to try and run parts of the course on the weekends when I'm not able to make the long group runs. Living in Framingham, I'm pretty fortunate that I can drive 5 minutes and be at mile 6, park my car and head out for solid out and back on the route. I need to take advantage of this more than I have.

After a bit of a lull in donations, I received a few really nice ones this week (some of them were on behalf of my birthday this week) and I'm closing in on $4,000, which is great. Thanks again to all that have helped.

Singlets and Bad News

Keep an eye out during the race for about 500 people wearing this shirt.

I received an email from a friend today that another friend from college was diagnosed with what is believed to be testicular cancer. As tough as it was to read that note, it is a sobering reminder why I'm wearing this jersey on April 19th and why we're all trying to help beat this awful disease.

A Clean 18

The DFMC group convened in Waltham this Saturday at the Boston Sports Club at Healthpoint, which also happens to be in the same building as the practice facility for the Celtics. 16-18 miles was on the docket for today and as I signed in, I decided that I'd give 18 a try. My previous longest run was 16+ a few weeks ago in Wayland so, assuming Jack knew what he was doing when he put his training plan together, and the fact that I've been feeling pretty good lately, I decided to go for a new personal record.

Stop me if you've heard this before....it was cold...damn cold. I'm thankful that Canada kept the jet stream in check and forced the blizzard that assaulted Baltimore down to our south, but the 20 degree weather and wind is starting to bug me and I'm seriously starting to think of deals to make with Mother Nature in order to send us a 40 degree group run sometime soon.

Anyway, the run started out fine and at a comfortable pace. I ran by myself for a while with the IPod jacked up, but I ended up running and talking with a few other runners that caught up to me. At the second water stop, I did some quick math based on the calculus that were presented to us in order to determine which routes to take and repeat, depending on how many miles people wanted to run. Once I figured out the combination that would lead me to a clean 18, I ended up hanging with the group for about another 1/2 mile after the water stop, when I realized it would be a good idea to let them go if I had any chance of finishing 18 upright. The music's volume went back up.

It started to get hilly...really hilly. Lots of up and downs on both sides of the fork. I tried to manage them by holding back on the downhills and giving a little extra on the uphills. All said and done, I didn't feel as bad as I thought I would once I finished each side, but I could feel myself getting tired and cold near the end. As I continued past the water stop after hitting the 1.6 miles stretch for the second time, I started to head up the other hill again towards the Carroll School, when it donned on me that I screwed up. The first giveaway was that no one was heading down the hill at me. That's when I realized that, given the mileage I had already run, I was supposed to be heading back to the gym and not back out on that stretch of road. So, I decided to make it to the top of the hill and then turn around and head back to home base.

At this point, I was about 13.75 miles into the run and the legs were getting heavy. I made it past the final water stop and through Lincoln Center without any issues but at a much slower pace. As I made my way back onto Winter St., I got a little disoriented and at one point, thought I was on the wrong road. As I made it up a hill, I saw a woman out for a walk. I ended up scaring her to death when I came up behind her and asked if Healthpoint was straight ahead. After she caught her breath and stopped laughing, she told me it was straight ahead and a few miles up the road. I apologized for the intrusion and kept going.

After dodging 6-7 deer that came stampeding across the street and almost tackled me, I hit the stretch of Winter St. that became less residential and more corporate. At this point, the hamstrings were in rough shape due to the cold and the hills, and I was toast. The only good thing about heading up the wrong hill earlier was that my 18 miles finished pretty close to the bottom of the hilly drive leading back to the club. Even walking up that hill was tough. But at the end of the day, I made my mileage and, considering I kept the Garmin running at the water stops, I was OK with my time.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24074989

After downing 3 G2's and stretching for about 15 minutes, I headed for the car. As I pulled out the parking lot, I noticed a very large black Mercedes with illegally dark tinted windows and dealer plates that pulled into the complex. I wondered which Celtic was coming to practice and if he would have been impressed with the miles that many of us put in that morning.

Once again, THANKS to the volunteers who were out there with the snacks and beverages. You guys are patient, dedicated and obviously have an unbelievable ability to deal with miserable temperatures.

I took today off and will probably give myself one more day of rest on Monday. I've found that after going a distance I've never gone before, the extra day helps a little bit. It gets me off Jack's plan for a day, but I'll play catch up later in the week.

Someone up there likes us

I'm thankful the forecast for tomorrow is this....

...and not this.

Good thing I've got plenty of winter running gear.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/020210Groundhog_Day/