10 miles down!

Happy New Year, all!

Although the weather remains uncooperative, your fearless runner remains (somewhat) undaunted. Aliza and I went to visit the Ottawa Dwoskins over the holiday, where the weather warmed up just enough for it to rain and for everything to be coated in ice. Lovely. Fortunately, Myra has a new treadmill, so I got in a 5-miler on that. The warmish weather was making me pretty cabin-feverish, though, and I was eager to be running outside, suicidally slippery sidewalks be damned. The ice finally melted into pools of sludge, and I went for a 9-miler (15k)--my longest solo run to date. Normally it's good to be a little cold when one leaves for a run, because you just warm up. It was pretty windy that day, though, and just got windier, so that by the time I got back to the house I could barely feel most parts of my body. The run itself went ok, all things considered.
Once I got back to Boston, we were buried under another giant snowstorm, so that meant back onto the treadmill for me. I did manage to do a fairly strenuous core workout, so my obliques were killing me today all through my run. Today--sunny, just below freezing, a little windy, and 10 miles on the menu. I was psyched when our coach told us we were going back towards Hopkinton, rather than hitting Heartbreak. What I didn't know was that the road from Wellesley into Natick is pretty much all hills--rolling ones, though, so I kind of liked it. They were short enough that I was never too tired to get to the top before taking a little break (of which there were many). I felt each one of those miles, but it really wasn't bad considering how much of a slacker I've been. I'm not excited about my 6-mile "recovery" run tomorrow. I'm more up for a 6-mile recovery nap, frankly. We'll see how my legs feel in the morning.
I like that we've been running more and more of the Boston course each week. Today I took some time on the way back to notice each landmark--a church, a Dunkin Donuts, a garage--that I'm going to pass on April 20th. Of course, the problem is that I'll know EXACTLY how far I still have to go when I do pass all those things!
On a brighter note, I'm exactly $82 away from my $3000 minimum, so if any of you have 82 extra dollars lying around, you'll be able to push me over the top. I do want to raise a total of $5000 by Marathon Monday, and every penny of that extra $2000 goes directly to the Society's projects (research and patient care).
I did a dedication for Amanda today at practice, and I reminded my teammates how important it is to think about getting on the Bone Marrow Registry, so I figured I'd remind you all too. In Canada, go through the Canadian Blood Services (www.blood.ca)--it's the same process to donate bone marrow as stem cells. In the US, the National Bone Marrow Registry is at www.marrow.org. There isn't another drive in Boston for a little while (there's one in Lynn, MA on Jan 10), but I'll do my best to keep you posted.