BostonBound59

This weekend we ran the same 23 mile course but on separate days because Cathy attended the annual Massachusetts Track & Field Coaching Clinic on Friday evening and Saturday (with Jack Daniels as one of the guest speakers). I have attended the clinic the last few years but took a pass this year due a busy work schedule and a desire to get my last and final 20+ mile training run out of the way on Saturday. We have been doing most of our long training runs this winter on Kendall Hill in Mont Vernon, a three mile long series of four hills very similar to the Newton hills but closer together. Kendall Hill is no secret, as we encounter many other Boston Marathon hopefuls and various "Teams in Training" on the same hills each weekend. Sometimes we high five each other as we pass. To keep it interesting, we have tried to vary how we approach these hills, sometimes approaching starting from the Amherst Village, sometimes taking a route out by Baboosic Lake Rd. in Merrimack then over to Souhegan Woods golf course and back through the Village and a few times (like this weekend) the most boring option of starting at our house on Nathaniel Drive and heading down Horace Greely then up Austin Road. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2677330 For most of our runs we have run Kendall Hill from the Village and then come directly back down and repeated this act of stupidity again (meaning about six of the roughly 20+ miles involve steady up hill running not including a few other random hills). I find it mentally tough to repeat the same course twice in one long run so this week I changed it by running Kendall Hill just once and taking a right onto Joe English Road which (as I described in the last post) is another series of hills running up to about 1000' in total elevation at the base of Joe English Hill in New Boston. Its probably one of the most beautiful runs in the area with many farm houses, farm animals (I was chased by chickens on my way back down Tater on Saturday including one odd one with no feathers) and incredible vistas looking northwest toward Mt. Kearsarge.

In total the course had 9 major hills. The last hill on Joe English Road in New Boston before turning around at Jessica Lane was so steep it felt like I was literally walking for close to a mile. My training runs have always been generally on the slow side, especially on these mega-hilly training runs. For some reason I have trouble keeping within 30-60 seconds of my goal marathon pace as my McMillan plan recommends. For Saturday's run, I was 3:15 for the 23 miles, about an 8:31 pace. I felt ok throughout and I thought I was going faster than my overall pace indicated but running alone with a large water pack I suppose slowed me down more than I thought. After a little stretching and a couple of Bud Lights later I really didn't care. On Sunday I ran an easy 11 mile recovery on a portion of the same course with my Amherst (and hopefully 2010 Boston Marathon entrant) buddy Charlie Lawrence. While Charlie and I slogged along Cathy ran the same course I ran Saturday in exactly 3:00, about 7:50 pace. Next week we have the Eastern States 20 miler. I'm looking forward to finally running on flat ground although my training plan has me running 10 seconds slower than marathon pace the first 1/3, marathon pace the middle third, and (hopefully) a little faster than MP the last1/3.