Sunday, March 25, 2007

In Training

I am sad. I can't run the Cherry Blossom 10 miler next week because there's no way I can leave Mr. Bear alone for a weekend when he's only able to start putting weight on his foot the day I was planning on heading to DC. So I'm signing up for the Cohasset Race by the Sea 10k with the evil hill and dragging him to Cohasset with me. If I can't go to DC and run among the cherry blossoms, he's going to hang out in Cohasset while go for a run along the ocean.

Now comes the next question - I'm on track to run the half marathon at the Johnny Kelley memorial this year; however, I promised someone I'd do the Lowell Spinners run the day before that. So the question then becomes, can I run a 2 mile race on Saturday and a half on Sunday. Then there is that piece of me that wants to run the 5k of the Kelley race so I can compare it to where I was last year when I ran that race. I could also use the 10k race to compare myself to the Hyannis race a few weeks ago, as it's the same course.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, yesterday I ran a beautiful 5 miles from Newton City Hall to BC to train for the evil hill. I also saw something incredibly sweet while running. The hill was lousy with runners - many training for Boston. I expected to see that on a Saturday afternoon... no biggie. There was this one guy who jetted past me on the up hill. You know the type - he eats hills for breakfast - runner's body with his singlet and shorts, camelback, gloves and hat. He passed me coming down the hill and jetted past me again just before I turned around.

On my way down the hill, there was a woman running slightly faster than me and then Mr. Hills jetted past me again and when he reached the woman, he stopped, gave her a kiss and then slowed down to run down the hill with her. That's when it hit me, while she was doing her training run, he was doing his hill repeats until she was ready to finish up. There was something really wonderful about watching that scene - watching two people find a way to work out together even though they were really in different places. It was such a warm moment and it was just sweet witnessing it.

That one moment turned a satisfying 5 miles into something better. When I ran past the Johnny Kelley statue, I told him to put 5 in the book for me today and I'll see him again this week. I could imagine him telling me I better.

I'll probably go out for a little run through the neighborhood this afternoon after it clears up a bit. After all this is Boston. Yesterday I ran in 50* weather, went to bed after a line of snow/rain/mush hit and woke up to the sun shining and the snow melting.

3 comments:

GB said...

Aaaaw your post inspired me! The story about the two runners was very sweet. I'm fortunate that my hubby is sweet like that and will ride his bike on the routes that I run so we can hang out together. You made a good decision regarding the 10 mile race. You're putting the Bear first and that's wonderful!

Nini said...

Did you decide on Cohasset? My advice on the hill? It's a long step hill... I'm going to shoot for walking breaks regularly spaced to give me some incentive to finish the hill...

JOJIT said...

Good decision on prioritizing your family first before the race. There'll always be a race/run to go to.