Training Log Archive: Lori

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

Freezing cold run with Presto from my apartment to the river and then the JFK-River St. loop. We had to swerve around a constant flow of people for the Harvard-Yale game, who really liked Presto. A woman in a car even took a picture of him as she drove past.

Ran with Presto from my apartment to the river and then did the JFK-River St. loop crossing every bridge. On the way back, I went to the Science Center to try to buy stamps, but apparently you can't buy stamps there anymore, so it just added a bit of distance to my run. It was the first really cold run of this fall. I really need to find my hat and/or headband to save my ears.