One Day

I've already complained about living in Boston. But there's one day a year that makes me happy and proud to live here, and that's Marathon Monday. I love that I live in a town where the biggest sporting event of the year isn't the Super Bowl or whatever that baseball championship thing is called. The biggest sporting event of the year is a foot race.

Traffic Alerts

Once a year, everyone heads to routes 135, 16, and 30. They set up chairs on the sidewalks, sometimes two or three deep, sometimes setting the chairs out the day before, and they sit and stand and sleep in strollers and wait for tens of thousands of people to run by. There is screaming and cheering and copious tears (for me anyway) and an assload of cowbell. It's a fun time.

Portapotties on the Town Common

Lots of people have the day off, the schools are closed, and you better not try to drive anywhere unless you're staying north or south of the course. If you do have to work and you live anywhere nearby, you have to get there early or risk six hours of road closures. Even though my company doesn't give us the day off, people at work understand if you don't show up on Monday morning. It's just what we do around here. And for this one day, I'm happy to be part of the "we".

Barrier Delivery

This week was rough. Not running rough, but work rough. Sean and Maple headed to Utah and I worked my ass off and went a little crazy in the process. I think the craziness is over, and I'm only working a few days this week before I take off for Utah too. My job isn't usually stressful, but when it is, I typically deal with it pretty well, largely because I run six days a week. This week I didn't run at all, so my brain chemistry was in a sad state. I had four days of complete rest after my race last weekend, and then I did some cross training for two days, and today, glorious today, I got to run. It was just 3 slow miles, but it was wonderful.

I did manage to get my head out of my ass about the race. It was hillier than I thought. So what, who cares. I ran a half marathon faster than I've ever done it before. I have MS and I'm still running. I should be more graceful about a few stupid hills. I was so busy complaining that I forgot to mention how spectacular the views were. Think ocean, rocky outcroppings, sunlight filtering through trees and adorable little houses perched on the rocks. It would be a really nice place to visit.

Tomorrow I start training again, this time for some shorter summer races: a few 5ks, a mile, and another half marathon in July. I don't know what my training looks like yet, but I'm looking forward to more speed work and some shorter "long" runs. I have no idea what Coach Erin has in store for me, so tomorrow morning will be just like Christmas. I can't wait!