Training Log Archive: Lori

Ran with my dad and Spirit from the house and around Dix Hospital on a kind of new route. It was cold and then started drizzling while we were out there, so we cut the run short a bit. Spirit found a golf ball and a tennis ball, which we threw for him while we were running.

Normal abs workout plus a little bit with the added challenge of Spirit sitting on my chest/stomach and licking my face the entire time. And let me tell you, this is definitely an added challenge! I also did clams.

Went running with my dad and Spirit around Dix Hospital. Spirit has a similar love for recycling as Presto and picked up every water bottle and piece of trash along the way. We also ran past the K-9 unit training area, so we had Spirit do some of the agility training. It was pretty warm, and there are hills here. I've definitely gotten used to the more or less flat river run with the only hill at the beginning and end of the run.

C • Hill 2

Went running with Presto from my apartment to the river and then did the JFK-River St. loop crossing every bridge. I kind of overdressed for this. I was thinking about how cold it had been, and since it was dark outside, I was tricked into thinking it was colder than it actually was. My legs weren't too tired from the weekend, although I wasn't really moving all that fast. The roads and esplanade were really empty. I guess everyone around Harvard had already left for Thanksgiving break.

Blue Hills Traverse. I'm not a huge fan of these huge long courses, and it was fairly cold, so I really had to convince myself to do this in the first place. I ended up having a really good time. Alex and I were in the same carpool on the way over, and we decided to run it together at a sort of moderate pace. We were more or less together until 2...at which point my hat came off. I was kind of overheating anyway, so I stopped to put it in my pocket. When I looked back up, Alex had gone around a bend, and I never saw her again. Oh well...it would have been fun to run with her. (Turns out she found JJ's group and felt motivated to run faster.) Once I didn't see her anywhere on the way to 3, I basically decided that I'd lost her, and I would continue at the pace I had originally intended to run the course. On the way to 4, I saw Dean, which made me feel good about my pace. We got to 4 and 5 at approximately the same time, using different route choices.

I also got to 5 at the same time as the Bundschuh's. I considered just running with them at that point because I remembered from the year before that although I was running faster, we were getting to controls at about the same time, but I decided to try at least one more control and see what happened. When I saw them again at control 6, I just decided to run with them. I really enjoy running with them because they are so technically accurate and listening to them discuss how they are going to get from place to place is a good learning experience. On the way to number 7, we picked up Meg Parson, who had somehow lost her dad, who she was originally running with. This made for a pretty fun group (Pete and Lex Bundshuh, Meg, Presto, and I).

We were moving at a pace that I could sustain for an extremely long time, which made the course fun. The only problem was that my sciatica started acting up, and I was getting shooting pains down the back of my leg. Presto did very well, only getting stuck on the wrong sides of trees occasionally, although he did try to steal people's cookies.

We made it to the refreshment control with about 25 or 30 minutes to spare and had a few cookies. (I gave Presto some too, which he definitely needed. He perked up a lot after them.)

On the long leg at the end (21-22), we went a more technically challenging way than most. I think the trail run was actually faster, but the way we went was more interesting. Also it meant we got to run down the entire snowy ski slope, which was AWESOME! Presto really enjoyed it, too.

I finished feeling fine. I'm glad the course wasn't longer, but I could have kept going for a while if I really needed to, I suppose. Presto got really cold after a while of waiting, so I put my sweatshirt on him, which he looked adorable in. When we got home, Presto basically fell over and when to sleep for a LONG time.

C • Nice job! 2

Traverse - Splits