Sunday Run

This week those in our group training for Boston will be taking on their 20 Miler. A big run indeed. Here’s your opportunity to practice more than just the running. Put your game day plan in action starting the night before. Whatever you plan on eating for dinner the night before Boston, give it a try tonight. When you wake up in the morning eat your planned race day breakfast. When you get dressed put on those socks you think you’ll wear. Those shoes you want. That sports bra that you’re not sure will chafe or not. Temperatures will be in the 40s and 50s for a change so you might want to try out the exact outfit you’d wear if you hit that weather on race day.

Speaking of weather, did you hear what I just said (or read what I just typed actually) ITS GONNA BE ABOVE FREEZING! For the first time in what feels like forever we’re gonna have a Sunday Run above freezing. It may be raining however, so dress appropriately.

For those a bit intimidated by the distance of this run, take this one as 5 trips to the water stop. From water stop to water stop is far as you have to go at any one time so don’t think of it as one big run but 6 short ones.

The route: you’ll love it. Starting out West Wyoming we pass the Stone Zoo past Friendly’s and out Park St. A right on Marble over I93 to the first water stop. One down.

From there you’ll head down Forest St to a left on Highland Ave, through the hills to the end of Highland. Water Stop 2 already.

Now we’ll break some new ground for this season. Turn left on Rt38/Main St and go about a half mile to Playstead Rd on the right. Turn on to this wide road by Oak Grove Cemetery to cut over to Rt60. At Rt60 you’ll be at the  West Medford Commuter Train stop with a Dunkin Donuts in front of you (a popular place to take a break, if you know what I mean). Turn right onto Rt60/High St and follow this towards Arlington. There is one tricky point here, where High St branches. A right would take you to Grove St, no matter how straight that looks DON’T GO RIGHT HERE!  Stay to the left to follow High St. You’ll end up at a rotary, you’ll see a bridge that heads into Arlington, DON’T GO OVER THE BRIDGE. Take a right onto Mystic Valley Parkway. A very nice road with pleasant views, enjoy this flat fun part of the run. At the end of this road you’ll turn right, go under the commuter rail and turn left to stay on the Mystic Valley Parkway. Here you’ll find water stop 3.

Leaving here you’ll skirt the edge of Winchester Center and take a left at the second set of lights onto Washington St. Washington will take you across Mt Vernon St where you’ll then keep to the right to stay on Washington St. Follow Washington St all the way to Forest St (look for the Gingerbread Construction Company as a landmark) and turn right to follow a series of hills back up Forest St to water stop 4 (same as water stop 1).

Next you’ll head back to Marble, turn right at Friendly’s onto Rt28/Main St in Stoneham and travel the back side of Spot Pond. Turn left on Elm to continue the loop of Spot Pond, and right on Highland Ave for the final water stop of the day.

From Highland you’ll run to the rotary at the Fellsway East, turn right and flow through the hills of the Fellsway East to West Wyoming Ave (Grimsby’s). Turn right onto W Wyoming, left on Main and back to Brueggers!

Shorter route? You can either start with the longer route runners and enjoy the route described or meet at water stop run and run the middle of the route for about 10 miles.

Water Stops, Barry and I will do our best to cover the stops, one more helper would make the plan run a lot smoother.

Who’s in? This is a good question this week. With a 20 miler in Salem and the Stu’s in Clinton we’ve got a lot of runners heading off to do their own thing. We may have some visitors join us from Somerville though to fill in some of the holes. Either way it would be a great help to know before I head out to buy Gatorade and water so if you’re a regular or a visitor, please post here to let us know you’re coming. So again, who’s in? ROLL CALL!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 5th, 2011 at 10:53 am and is filed under Roll Call, Week 9, Winter 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.