Flying Solo

This past weekend's plan from Jack called for a long run of up to 18 miles. Due to prior commitments made for Saturday (my little guy's swim lessons and my annual baseball fantasy draft), I decided to skip the group run and bang out the run on my own early before my house woke up. In keeping with my goal to get on the actual marathon course as often as possible, I headed out at 6:30 am to the other side of town, parked my car and walked across the street to mile 7 of the course. My goal for the day was to run to the actual finish line on Boylston, which would be just over 19 miles.

The weather was great and the sun came up just after rolling through "downtown" Natick. As I continued in to Wellesley, I spotted Mike driving past me looking for the group run location. Noticing that I didn't have any water with me and knowing I would not have water stops available via the group run, he asked me if I needed anything. I told him I was good and felt alright and I kept going after wishing him well on his own run.

I popped into Dunkin' Donuts just over the Newton line to grab a water. After having half a GU and a few sips, I kept going. I ended up carrying the rest of the water with me, for fear that it was still early and some of the smaller stores, bakeries, etc. ahead may not be open yet. In hindsight, I was right and it was good to hang onto the bottle, even though it was a little annoying to carry.

Having never been able to participate in the Thursday night Crossroads' runs, the furthest I had ever gone out on the course was on Comm Ave. at South St. when the group has run out of the Mt. Auburn Club. Once I crossed that intersection, I wasn't sure what to expect (besides a little more traffic). After going through Cleveland Circle, I stayed on the left hand side of Beacon St., which I now realize is hillier than the other side of the street. The only issues I had involved not timing the crossing signal correctly at one intersection (oops), and literally dodging another charity's runners coming at me for a mile or so, to the point I had to get off the sidewalk for a stretch. I hit the wall at Kenmore, finished off my bottle of water while walking a few steps and then headed for the finish line. Due to the fact that it was a beautiful day, Boylston St. was packed so I had to dodge a few more pedestrians and other runners (the marathon route was filled with people from Wellesley to downtown).

I ended up making it to the finish line around 9:30 AM and felt a really good sense of accomplishment. As planned, Katie was parked with the kids in the car and waiting for me with water and a dry shirt right next to Trinity Church. After a quick stretch, we jumped back on the Mass Pike and headed home.

All said and done, I finished in under 3 hours and with a pace under 9:00/mile, which is better than I expected. My other moral victory was making it through the Newton Hills without walking once, so that was nice due to the fact I had yet to accomplish this.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/27509924

I'm probably going to miss next week's run from Hopkinton to BC due to John's baseball tryouts, so I'll be going solo (again) on Sunday for the full 22. I'm debating whether to run the same run again and tack on the extra miles around downtown or backup my start on 135 into Ashland.

Fundraising spiked up again with a few more really generous donations, which was great and a little unexpected. I'm hoping to hit the $5,000 milestone very soon.