Survived 12

I haven't been that great at blogging lately, huh?  I've been feeling a little burnt out from marathon training, and I think that's also triggering a lack of motivation to blog about it too, clearly.  I did get the 12mi run day out of the way though, so I'm pretty happy about that - although I pretty much still dread every other long run.  Running the 12 was much more enjoyable (not necessarily any easier, but definitely more enjoyable) because I met up with Erin and ran with her instead of running alone.  To me, that is key.  I had to get up at 4:30am on a Saturday morning to do it, but I'd probably do just about anything and drive just about anywhere to avoid running alone on the long runs.

We met up at the Minuteman Bikeway in Lexington, MA.  Sidenote: What a beautiful town Lexington is!  The cutest little downtown area!  Definitely now on my list of - would totally live there - locations.  Last week was actually supposed to be a recovery week and we were only supposed to run 6mi for the "long run", but since Erin was going out of town for work this week she decided to swap the weeks, so I did too.

I liked the Minuteman Bikeway as a running path a lot because it was very shady and flat.  Actually looking at the elevation profile, I am quite surprised to see that it's not quite as flat as it felt, but the change in gradient was very gradual, so at least you aren't looking giant hills in the face like at Winnekenni.

"Flat-ish" running path

The only negative aspect of the Minuteman Bikeway (besides it being quite a drive) is that it starts to get pretty busy.  That, and the fact that it's been a super hot summer so far, makes getting up at 4:30am totally worth it, so that as much of the run is completed as possible before the path gets too congested and before it gets unbearably hot out!!

It's quite nice to be in the recovery week this week and not to be dreading a LONG, long run again (at least not until NEXT week...)