February Running in Boston

I ran 14.6 miles on my Sunday Long Run. We had a great day and the run went well. Normally the day after a long run I lift or take the day off.

Not this sunny February 1st day! I knew it would be nice, but when I saw that it was 63° in Cambridge I grabbed my gear and headed out!

How could I resist?

Remarkably my legs were not sore. My knee felt fine and my quads were not sore. A miracle if there ever was one.

As I opened the door to go out I could feel the cool 60° air wash over me, and it felt good. The sun was bright and my Garmin picked up a signal in about 30 seconds. Another miracle!

As I ran over the Longfellow Bridge into Boston I could see ice on the river. There was a lot of open water but lots of ice also. I kept waiting for a cold blast of air to rise up off of the river and chill me to the bone. But the breeze was light and cool.

About half a mile into my run I could feel the fatigue in my quads. I knew pushing or going long would be a bad idea so I held back and started thinking about where I would turn around.

I certainly was not going to do a 10K but I had to do more than a mile. Even though it was an unexpectedly beautiful day for a run, I still needed two miles to make the effort worthwhile.

If I turned at the BU Bridge I’d get about 5K. My legs were telling me , “no way.” As I crossed Storrow Drive and took the steps down to the path on The Esplanade I decided I would turn when I hit 1 mile out.

Near the concession stand and playground area I hit one mile. Just for fun I decided to go a little further to the next bridge over to the island and head back that way. I would tack on a few tenths of a mile.

My legs were getting heavy and going over the bridge was actually a bit of a challenge. As I jogged along a few people passed me and I had to just let it go. Not today.

Foot traffic was light and I didn’t see a single cyclist. This made it easy to lumber along and just do my thing.

I ran back over The Longfellow and most of the way back to my building.

2.38 miles at an average pave of 9:23. Hardly a training run, but more miles than I would have run on this day.

February Running 2015

Last year I ran the Super Sunday 5K in Kendall Square on February 1st. It was a freezing cold Sunday with some snow on the ground I met the gals with the Slow and Thirsties Team and we’ve run several races together since.

We were having a pretty average winter up until that point. Then we got hammered with 64+ inches of snow in February alone.

I just hope old Jack Frost isn’t setting us up for another February Surprise!

Check out my post on some Valentines races.

Run well my friends!

Andy