BostonBound59

Cathy and I were lucky enough to travel to Philadelphia this weekend so she could give a talk to the senior managers at Wyeth Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of Enbrel. Cathy has been taking Enbrel since 2006 to help manage her psoriatic arthritis which she has had since her early 20’s. Before she began taking Enbrel, exercise was difficult and she would have regular arthritic flare-ups which would sideline her from running for several days at a stretch. I didn’t mind because it allowed me to keep beating her regularly. Well, all of that’s changed now. At age 49 she is a 3:16 marathoner with hopes of going under 3:15 at Boston. Now when we are in the same race I consider myself lucky if I can keep her in sight for the first mile.

Sunday was another 6” of snow in New Hampshire so in light of our trip we decided to do our Monday run Sunday and the long run if possible in Philadelphia Monday. We learned that there was little or no snow on the ground in Philadelphia so we kept our fingers crossed that we would find a good long rail trail near our hotel to make up for our missed long run on Sunday. Well, we lucked out and had a great run this morning on the Schuylkill River Trail which runs from Valley Forge National Park right into the heart of Philadelphia. We parked our car at Valley Forge National Park at about 9:45 AM and ran 85 minutes on the trail getting to within one mile of Philadelphia before turning around and coming back---which took a bit longer on the return because late morning snow flurries had slickened the running surface. The trail runs along an abandoned rail line along the banks Schuylkill River. There was a light dusting of snow on the trail outbound but not enough to slow us down much. Coming back was a different story as the snow was coming down harder and the trail icing up. Overall it was a pretty good early season training run (probably a little too long) for mid-January, approx. 21 miles in 2:53--just under 8:20 pace. When I started dragging this morning I kept reminding myself of the scene in Rocky before he ascends the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—he runs along the banks of the Schuylkill.