adventures in cambridge

My mom has a delicious recipe for chili that she obtained from a friend on the Weight Watchers diet. She was originally told that is was 1 "point" (WW-members understand) for every serving, but as we later found out, it's actually 3 points per serving. To this day, we lovingly refer to the recipe as "1 point/3 point chili."

You'll now understand when I call this my 13-mile/9.6-mile run.

I planned on running in the dark, since there's little choice in the matter when you run after work. I also know myself well enough to realize I am terrible with directions. Consequently, I chose the simplest route I could possibly think of that still took me 13 miles from my house. I would run to Porter Square--a T-stop I've been to so many times, I like to think I could find it with my eyes closed--then run north up Mass Ave for many miles until I hit a road called Pleasant Street. At Pleasant Street, I'd turn around and retrace my steps until I was once again at my front door. Not the most exciting route, but simple enough that even I should be able to follow it.

I also planned to try a packet of "carb gel" (if you've never heard of this, I'll blog about it once I've actually tried it... but it looks disgusting) for the first time. Thirteen miles was about a half marathon, after all--fueling mid-run seemed like a good idea.

Enter complications! My parents always tell me I live a charmed life, and the following example makes it difficult to argue that contention.

Jogging up Somerville Ave to get to Porter Square, a man all of a sudden began jogging next to me, holding out a small black cube for me to take. I looked confusedly at him for a brief second--until I realized it was my cell phone! It had fallen out of my pocket, and he had run to catch up with me and return it. I answered with a little-too-loud, "THANK YOU!"--partly due to my earbuds, mostly due to much-deserved gratitude. Wherever you are, Nice Man, I owe you one.

Along with my cell phone dropped the carb gel to the ground--who knows what happened to that. Although those little packets are relatively expensive, I can't say I was too sorry to have lost it. =)

I arrived to Porter without further complications, and I started down Mass Ave. Unfortunately, while plotting out my route, it never actually dawned on me that Mass Ave runs both north and south through Porter Square. Mostly thinking about how wonderful it was to have my cell phone (now gripped firmly in my right hand), I started running south with no awareness of my mistake.

In addition, at some point fairly early in my trip (the wrong way) down Mass Ave, I followed a sidewalk curve instead of crossing the street as I was apparently supposed to, and I ended up on Cambridge St. This mistake I suspected, at least--and the street signs parallel to my path confirmed my suspicions when I finally made out a few of them several blocks later.

I went with it--Cambridge St seemed as good a street as any to follow in a straight path. I passed by some college buildings (there are a million of those around here, so I didn't think much of it) and continued until I hit the Lechmere T-stop. The intersection just past Lechmere looked like one I could easily get lost on if I continued forward and then later tried to make my way back across it again, so I decided it was as good of time as any to turn around.

On my way back, I passed the same college and realized--for the first day in my life--I was on the Harvard campus! It's nerdy, but that was ridiculously exciting for me, and I kicked myself that I hadn't realized what college (on Cambridge Street--duh!) I had run past before. Still, it was a very exciting moment for me--and whatever building I ran directly by that looked like a church with its gorgeous stained glass windows was really quite breathtaking. Harvard!!

I made my way back to Mass Ave and back to Porter without difficulty. I planned to run from Porter Square to Mossland--a ridiculously simple path I had taken countless times to get home from work at my first apartment here. Blame it on trying to navigate in the dark--or more accurately, blame it on trying to navigate in the dark when you're already pretty exhausted from running for a while--but I missed the turn.

I'm happy to report that my mistake was mostly just amusing at that point. Based on the amount of time I'd been running, I knew I needed to add some extra mileage to my impromptu route anyway if I was going to get anywhere near 13. I ran down Somerville Ave for a while, turned around after a bit, and ran back.

I'm happier to report that I at least found the turn coming back.

Upon returning home, I Google-Mapped my very odd route and discovered I had only run 9.6 miles--not 13. That said, my cell phone is still in my possession; at no point during the run did I actually feel lost; and unlike the last time I ran by myself in the dark, I didn't trip and bruise anything. I'm calling this a success.

13-mile/9.6 mile run complete.

the elusive 13-miler

I'm sure my terrible habit of procrastination has already become completely apparent.

I had the best of intentions to run 13 miles with my usual running group this past Saturday. However, the time slipped my mind and I accidentally scheduled a trip to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science (which was pretty sweet, by the way) at the same time instead. By the time I returned from a day out at the MOS and around town, I was hardly motivated enough to go for a long run by myself. I decided to run 13 the next day.

Sunday's plan was to meet a group of friends for a lunch of Dim Sum--delicious, but stomach-cramp-causing for some reason. My stomach was completely back to normal after only an hour or so of letting it settle on my couch... about the time I was gearing up for the Colts/Jets game.

I decided this wasn't a problem. I was sure that the game would be a blow-out, so when Manning had his team up by 14 points at the half, I'd go for my run and be back to my house in time for the Sunday's second all-important game.

The Colts game, inevitably, was not a blowout--great to watch, but not great for the run. The Vikes/Saints game was even more gripping, so by the time OT of the second game was finished, it was after 10 PM. I briefly considered running my 13 miles then, but decided it might be safer to do an early morning run the next day before work instead.

At 4:15 AM this morning, my alarm went off. I laughed, shut it off, and went back to bed.

I still have to run my 13 miles. I've mapped out a simple route; I've loaded my MP3 player with a plethora of 90 BPM songs; and though it looks like it's will be raining for the rest of the night, I will get it done. That may be the primary motivation behind posting this, actually: Now that it's in writing, I am bound!

tenth circle of hell

Finally, let me tell you about my grueling 10-miler. Every runner I've talked to has a story about some epic run they've had. I now have my own.

The number 10 alone was a huge psychological hurdle for me. The most I had ever run was nine miles, which was a one-time fluke that happened one summer on a treadmill in an air-conditioned basement when I had nothing better to do than run off some negative energy.

Psychological hurdle #2: This was my first run with hills. Ever.

To top it all off, I was moving into a new apartment the same weekend the run was scheduled. The night before the run, my boxes were moved, and my furniture wasn't. Translation: I slept on the floor of my new bedroom, and as you can imagine, I was consequently not very well-rested for 10 miles with hills.

We traveled to Grafton, Mass. for our hilly experience. It was snowing (also my first run with precipitation, incidentally!) and sticking--we often had to run just one runner abreast because the cleared path in the road only provided room enough for one set of feet.

This was intense. It was an out-and-back run, and we started running the second mile or so downhill. That was good news... except that it meant we would be running the second to last mile uphill. Good practice for Heartbreak Hill, certainly, but hard work.

This brings me back (yet again) to how essential it's been for me to run with teammates. For this epic event, I ran along with Jess, a more experienced runner than me (no, that doesn't take much, but still.) =)

Had Jess not been jogging next to me, I know for an absolute fact that I would've ended that run by walking the last mile. Thanks to the motivation provided simply by her presence--and by the competitive streak developed by years of Dr. Mario games with my father--I somehow continued through the snow and slush to run the entire 10 miles. It wasn't fast running, but it was continual.

Epic, I tell you.

The 11- and 12-milers we've completed since (both without hills or precipitation, both on dry ground, and both after restful nights of sleep) were both somehow easy compared to Grafton. I guess that's one awesome thing about overcoming ridiculously difficult personal challenges--I now think to myself, "After 10-miles in those conditions, this will be nothing!"

the best kind of peer pressure

I'm a big fan of peer pressure used the right way. When we first began training, I suggested that each of my teammates hang their training schedules next to mine on the outside of my cubicle. We each check off the days for which we complete the required miles or cross-training successfully. It's incredibly motivating--you don't want to be the one person with a day's run not crossed off!

(Yes, my 9-miler remains unmarked. I'm very excited for the halfway point in our training, when we'll get to flip the calendar over to Side 2 and my few missed runs will stop glaring at me.)

For the same reason of purely positive peer pressure (say that 20x fast--go!), I am hereby vowing never to do a long run by myself again. At our recent grueling 10-miler (which absolutely deserves a post of its own--stay tuned), there is no doubt in my mind that I would have walked the last mile had not my awesome teammate Jess been jogging alongside. Finally, my competitive nature is good for something other than family feuds over Risk games!

Number one thing learned training so far: If you can help it, don't go it alone.