Distance: 10.4 miles

Temperature: 32° F, “RealFeel” 15° F (but not raining!)

Motivation: Cuddle time with the world’s cutest 8-month-old, my friend Shannon’s daughter Madison Rogue:

Compared to the previous weekend, this week’s long run was pure heaven.  First of all – the weather cooperated!  Hooray!  All Friday night I’d been obsessively checking the weather reports, hoping that the blizzard inundating D.C. and NYC would hold off as promised.  AccuWeather promised that the snow wouldn’t start until the afternoon, BUT we all know how “accurate” AccuWeather can be.  (Common scenario, in Boston at least: “According to my app, it’s raining right now and will be for the next two hours.” *look up at overcast but decidedly not rainy sky*  “Huh.”)

But as promised, Saturday morning was just overcast and felt pretty warm for 32 degrees. I was actually a little worried that I’d overdressed as I boarded the T to Riverside along with the 40ish other runners who were running that morning.

This was our second time running what our coach has named the “Riverside run,” and we’ll be running this route three more times before the marathon.  We take the T out to the end of the D line, the Riverside stop, and then make our way through a neighborhood and over the 93 freeway before hitting the marathon course.  Of course, our coach planned it so that we join the marathon course at the bottom of the Newton hills, which is probably the section of the course that fills runners with the most trepidation.

The hills themselves aren’t incredibly steep, although they’re relatively long.  Each hill is perhaps a quarter of a mile to a little over a half mile from bottom to top.  The challenge is that there are four of them, one right after the other (Heartbreak Hill is the third), and they start at about mile 19 of the marathon — which, conveniently, is right when most marathoners’ glycogen levels tend to plummet. (I’ve been assured that there’s a reason why experienced marathoners like to say that “the race is half over at mile 20” and “marathons are 20 miles of hope and 6 miles of reality.”)

So these training runs are designed to get us used to running those hills as much as possible before race day.  Since we’ve run this course before, and also do weekly Wednesday hill trainings, the hills really didn’t feel too bad!  Of course, during this run I hit the hills after only about 2.5 miles instead of 19.  🙂

It was also great to run with a group!  Over the last couple of weeks, about 6 of us have noticed that we all run at about the same pace.  This week, we found ourselves running next to each other about a mile in, and ran as a group the rest of the way.  As we ran, we introduced ourselves, talked about our fundraising goals and plans, and observed how much much more quickly the miles go by when running as a group.  Even when we weren’t talking (because who can when you’re climbing a hill?), it helped to be able to concentrate on the other runners instead of on the road ahead.

We also collectively joked about how, in the span of about a week, a 10-mile run suddenly became a “short long run” and a relatively “easy” distance.  I’m trying to imagine how much more laughably short it’ll feel after our next long run (16 miles!!!).

We arrived in Kenmore Square together and celebrated with high fives and a picture!

Now time to mentally prep for our 16-miler on Saturday.  I’m stocked up with energy gels and am planning to wear all my brightest colors to keep my mood up!