Today's group run with DFMC

A week of stiff joints and a sore can had left me kind of dreading this morning...Caitlin phoned me to cheerily ask if we were going to do 15 miles (training schedule called for 12-15 miles)--to be met with my hemming and hawing. She picked me up promptly at 7:45 a.m., and we were off to Watertown to meet the team. Turns out Caitlin wasn't too sure about doing 15 either and we decided to make it a game-time decision--that is, to be decided at the turnaround point.

The day had dawned windy, but gloriously warm--the kind of windy 40-something-degree weather that reminded me of shambling long runs in early track season of high school. Keep in mind, please, that I grew up in a very small town--I was one of three girls from my school on the track team--we combined with another school for track and for football just to be able to field teams. When the spring came, we'd take turns bussing from one school to another at the end of the school day. North Central, the other school, had a football field, with wooden posts loosely marking a somewhat track-shaped path around it--directly through the grass, identical to what was on the field itself. (Kind of nice if you were tired though, as the coaches couldn't really tell if you trimmed a little off the corners.) So in the beginning of the season, the bus would take us to NC, where we'd pick up the NC kids, then take us back out and drop us at some distance. We'd clamber off the bus in our assorted windpants (too true) and sweatshirts (today's spandex-clad self revolts at the very idea) and then we'd run down gravel roads back to the school.

NOTE: Wimbledon, my home town, does have a track around the football field--a slightly larger than regulation gravel one. More often that not, we'd run "Telephone Poles," which were essentially when Coach Kvislen (also my math teacher) would tell us which pole to run to. (They were approximately 100 meters apart, so this wasn't nearly as irrational as it sounds. It was really a quite efficient way to mark off sprint ladders.)

That incredibly long tangent aside...what I am saying is this--the run today was nice. We took it easy, a casual and relaxing run, and I took a little side trip down memory line while we logged our miles.

Incidentally, we did do 15 miles, and after Heartbreak Hill, Caitlin noted that it didn't even seem that hard, especially after Derry last week. Though it's admittedly somewhat insane, I couldn't help but agree.

Special props to Caitlin and Brenda, for some of THE most entertaining running conversation yet. (Have I mentioned before that logging these kinds of miles with people pretty much causes you move straight from the casual acquaintance friendship directly to "OHMYGOD, you'll never believe what went down this week..." But it's good. The faces at the DFMC runs are becoming familiar, and I am happy to see them.

Good people, good run, great day overall. :)