20 Miles In The Rain

Last week I headed to Boston for a six day trip for work. This trip coincided with a 20 mile run in my marathon training schedule. Luckily, I only had to work Thursday - Friday and Sunday - Tuesday, but had Saturday off. Perfect! That's my regular long run day!

David flew in for the weekend and we planned on doing our long run together. This would be his first 20 mile run! (As some of you might know, 20 miles is the longest you usually run when training for a marathon. Its usually scheduled 3 weeks before the race. In our training schedule we are going to run 20 miles twice. Once 6 weeks out and another time 3 weeks out. )

I googled around looking for a good place to do our 20 mile run. Local running clubs usually post popular long run routes, and I was hoping to come across a site with this information. I found one website that recommended an area called the "Emerald Necklace" which was made up by a chain of lakes. There was a 20 mile route posted which looped around certain parts of the "necklace" a few times. This seemed somewhat complicated and I was hoping to find a simpler out and back or two times around course.

Emerald Necklace

I then realized I knew two distance runners in the area: Meredith and Martin! I emailed them both asking for route suggestions. I was hoping that they would actually be interested in running the first 10 miles with us, and then we would do the second 10 miles alone once we were familiar with the course. As it turned out Meredith wasn't up to that mileage yet due to an injury, and Martin told us he was scheduled for a half-marathon that morning. He immediately invited us to join him for the race, but we both initially dismissed that as an option since it seemed crazy to race a half-marathon, and to then continue on to run 7 miles. But as you know, we're both crazy! We signed up for the race and planned to double back on the course to get the miles in. With that plan set, I left sunny San Diego to head towards the Northeast!

Run to the Rock Half Marathon

A few days before leaving for Boston I checked the weather and was horrified to see that it was going to be sunny all week, but raining on the weekend! No! Rain?? I hate rain! I hate running in rain! Wait.. I DON'T run in rain! I have a membership to 24 Hour Fitness that I keep just for days that its raining and I need some place to run. Obviously in San Diego I almost never need to go there.

I arrived in Boston on Thursday with just enough time to drive down to Rhode Island to attend an evening program for work. The next day I worked from home in my hotel room for most of the day but went out at lunch time to meet Meredith for lunch. This was the first time we'd seen each other in about 15 years! Crazy! We met at a cute place in Cambridge called Algiers Cafe.

Lunch With Meredith in Cambridge

The food was great! After having lunch there we walked around to a few places in Harvard Square. We went to the Harvard bookstore where I got a nice technical running shirt, we checked out a cute little children's bookstore with a Curious George theme, and then we hunted down a little poetry bookstore tucked down a side street where I found a nice gift for my dad. (Haven't gotten around to mailing it yet, so if you're reading this Dad, guess I just ruined the surprise! Oops!)

Curious George Bookstore

Grolier Poetry Bookstore

At some point during the visit to Harvard Square it started to sprinkle, and by dinner time that night it was pouring. POURING!! The chances of the rain passing by race time the next morning were looking slimmer and slimmer. :o( I crossed my fingers that night that the rain would pass by the morning, but didn't have high hopes. The next morning I woke up and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't pouring anymore! It was only raining. HA! As if that was much better. The drive from Boston to the race in Plymouth was about 25 miles, so there was one last glimmer of hope that the rain in Boston wasn't an issue in Plymouth. About a half hour drive later that hope was dashed as well.

Excited & Apprehensive Before the Race

So we arrive in Plymouth and parked at the finish line and got on the shuttle to the start line where registration was. Upon getting to the start line we jumped into the registration line ... and as we stood there, the rain really started to get heavy. Luckily there was a guy standing behind us with an umbrella ... whose friend quickly jumped under to stay dry too ... and then he immediately asked us if we wanted to join as well. SURE! Hey, it was a big golf umbrella, why not? (Actually, he made quite a funny joke that we had to join them under the umbrella since two guys sharing one just by themselves was a bit weird. Haha, so true.)

Registration at the Start Line

As soon as we got into the building where we were to pick up our race numbers I saw Martin. It was great to meet him in person after months of sharing racing and training stories online. (Martin is a friend of Meredith's and Meredith used to work with my dad when I was in high school. And now we're all running friends! Are you keeping up with all of this?) Anyways, we chatted for a bit and then got on the shuttle to the start line. By the time we got there we only had about 10 minutes before start time. We checked our gear and got in line for the bathroom. Somewhere along these lines we lost Martin. :o( I was hoping to get a picture of all of us before the race started, but figured since it was a small race we'd find him afterwards. Unfortunately this did not happen.

The race got off to a rushed start and we joined the group of runners plodding through the rain. David and I were immediately startled to find that we were running down a narrow, windy road ... with no lane blocked off for the runners! We were running down the right side of a two lane road with one lane of traffic going each way. And there were cars going in both directions! Scary! We dodged puddles and tried to stay as far as possible to one side of the road and plodded through mile after soggy mile. Somewhere around mile 5 my iPod accidentally turned off a couple times (weird) and then at mile 6 it turned off completely and I couldn't turn it back on. OMG... it died!!

At this point I started to freak out. I was already worried about racing for 13 miles and then running 7 more. Add in the rain which I hate and things looked a bit more iffy. Take away my music?!?! Now we're talking about 14 more miles of torture! I kept hoping that my iPod would come back to life at some point in my run, but nope! No such luck. I got to listen to shoes hitting the wet pavement and cars splashing through puddles for the next 3 hours. Fun right? Okay, enough of that pity party. Back to the race.

So David and I kept up a pretty good pace considering the face that it was raining, the course was really really hilly, and I had NO MUSIC! AHH! (I know sorry, last mention of my dead iPod.) Our goal was to run between a 8:30 and 9:00 pace and we stuck to that mile after mile. We ended up finishing the race in 1:56! That was the same time that we took to run our first half marathon together in February. This course in Plymouth was much hillier and it was raining, so I was pleased to have completed the race with the same finish time. Playing the "what if" game, I kept thinking about how we'd do on a flat, dry course. I think we could have run in 1:50! Okay, we'll table that goal until next time.

So we finished the half marathon, grabbed some water and bananas and headed back to the car to drop off our stuff. We stopped and ate/drank/chatted for about 10 minutes by the car before deciding to head back out to bust out the next 7 miles. Unfortunately, after racing and then stopping for a while, starting to run again really does not feel good. Each step hurt for a bit until we finally got back into the groove. I'm not going to lie, that 7 mile run was no fun. We ran 3 1/2 miles out and back. Well, more like ran/walked it. But we got through it! We made it through 20 miles that day! We were both beat after the run and looking forward to getting back to the hotel to shower, change into dry clothes, and to eat eat eat!

After the Half-Marathon!

But Before the Next Seven Miles...

After 13 Miles, David Has Conquered the Rain!

As timing would have it, we didn't end up eating for about 3 hours. The drive back to Boston was bout 1/2 hour, then we had to shower, pack, and check out of that hotel, drive over to the next hotel I was staying in for work, check-in, and then go back to the airport to return the rental car. The only thing we had with us were two tiny bags of potato chips. Oh well, better than nothing. So 3 hours later when we finally got to eat we both ordered big burgers .. and they were the best burgers ever! Well, I think anything we ate by that time could have tasted like the best food ever. I might even have been tempted by a chunk of cheese at that point. I was totally starving!

The next day the tradeshow that I was in town for started. Let me just tell you, there is nothing better than standing in heels all day at a tradeshow the day after running 20 miles in the rain. Yep! That sucked. I was sore and had a couple blisters on my feet. That first day was rough. The second was better though, and by the third I was back to normal. And guess what? As soon as the tradeshow started the weather cleared up and it became a beautiful sunny week in Boston. Yeah, the two days I was out and about and running it was raining. As soon as I was locked inside all day it was sunny. Funny how that happens.

So the trip to Boston was long, wet and dreary at times, but fun overall. It was great to catch up with Meredith, so nice to finally meet Martin in person, and it was a total "experience" to get to run 20 miles with David for the first time. Our next 20 miler is lined up for two weeks from now. Let's keep our fingers crossed for blue skies and sunny days!