Saturday, March 3, 2007

Longest. Run. Ever.

So today I was feeling very ambitious and decided to go run part of the marathon course. I know I invited some of you to do this sometime (perhaps March 17?), but I wanted to go scout it out a bit myself. I ran from my place in Medford down 16 for about 11 miles to the Newton Fire Station on Comm. Ave.

I wanted to see if the hills were worthy of all the legendary tales. My verdict: they're not. There are some definite bumps in the road, but most of the hills are less than 100 meters long and none of them are steep. I still haven't figured out which one is Heartbreak Hill.

I ran through the hills, past BC, by the reservoir, and down past the finish line on Boylston just to finish what I'd started. I was going to take the T at some point, but figured I could probably run the 4-5 miles home faster than taking the incredibly slow orange line.

I made it home just fine. My legs felt pretty good considering the distance. I'm sure the weather helped too; it was gorgeous today. Yep, that was a long run. Longer than a marathon. I G-mapped it and it came out to 27.8 miles. That's a new personal record for me: that's the farthest I've gone at once.

Anyone up for an ambitious run on March 17? I'm out of town next week; I leave Tuesday afternoon and will get back the following Tuesday morning. So I'll see you all at practice in two weeks, or for a run on Monday.

-Emily

3 comments:

Boston Run Gals said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Boston Run Gals said...

whoops - that was me who deleted my previous comment - accident. emily - i'm impressed. and it takes a lot to impress me. great work on that distance. yes, i'm up for a crazy run on march 17th as long as there are no races the next day. i'll have to check the racing schedule. glad the hills "rolled" off your back. ha ha...

DrBruceD said...

It's not getting up Heartbreak Hill that's difficult, it's getting from the top of heartbreak to the finish that can be challending - it is not quite the easy jog down a little incline that I expected it would be. But I think it was Fatuma Roba who said after her first Boston win "I was told to expect some hills but I didn't see any".