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One More Hill! One More Hill!

September 27, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Woke up feeling much better this morning after a long night's sleep and headed over the Charles to run w/ Julia Ernst. We put in a few easy miles around Beacon Hill and Back Bay, after which I headed down to the Esplanade for some tempo. I had thought about doing hills or track work but didn't want to tire myself out too much for tomorrow's cheering or Sunday's Rock the Creek Relay race. I managed to crank my pace down to something approaching my current race pace for four miles:

6:07, 6:00, 6:15, 6:01

Finished the last one by the Mass Ave Bridge and then kept jogging. I had originally intended to head back the 3/4 of a mile to home at this piont but then thought to myself, why not one more bridge, it's a beautiful day. As I reached the BU bridge, well, you can't really get up onto that bridge from the trail without backtracking up this little footbridge so told myself I'd better go one bridge farther. I then picked up my pace to something a little more respectable and decided that 11 miles for the day would be good and if I could just make it to the Weeks Bridge over by Harvard I'd hit that goal. The River Street and Western Avenue bridges came and went, my pace getting swifter all the time. Before I knew it I was at the Weeks bridge, but of course, when you're there the Lars Anderson Bridge is just around the corner and why do 11 miles when you can do 12? "One more bridge, one more bridge!" I chanted. The Lars Anderson Bridge which connects the main Harvard campus to its business school and athletics fields would have been the logical place to turn, but by that point the Elliot Bridge, which marks the official ends of Storrow Drive (on the Boston side) and Memorial Drive (on the Cambridge side) also seemed pretty logical. It was, after all, the very last bridge in Cambridge, so why not get to the end, seeing as I'd started from the very beginning up by the Charles River Dam and the Museum on Science, where the bike trail along the river begins? And of course, as I approached this bridge a mile later, I found myself chanting, almost involuntarily, "one more bridge! one more bridge!" yet again and before I knew it I was on my way up the river toward Netwon and Watertown.

Turning at the Watertown Arsenal would have made it about 15, but that's an odd number, so best to go one bridge farther to even things out. I finally crossed on the North Beacon Street Bridge, just shy of the community rowing boathouse, a good ways beyond the city of Boston. I picked up the pace on the way back, looking for leaves and enjoying the sunshine. I kept checking my pace with my phone each mile and on the last few miles I practically flew: 7:17, 7:04, 6:44, 6:37, and (for the last 0.9 miles) a pace of 6:19 in spite of the pedestrians and cross streets. Arriving back at my apartment I set off on a little cooldown (stopping Strava so as not to contaminate the 7:19 average I'd worked so hard to earn over 19 miles). After a 7 minute jog I then walked another 10 minutes, did core, and stretched. An excellent start to the day and my longest run since the Boston Marathon last spring!