They Did it!

Wow!!!! High Fives to the Medfield Fit Girls team who raised over $1,000 in order to "adopt" a village in Northern Ghana, Africa. The girls' fundraising efforts will allow Community Water Solutions to provide clean and healthy drinking water for children and their families. All the girls did a GREAT job at the 5k Trail Fun Run followed by a pizza banquet on the field. These girls rock!

This spring the Medfield Fit Girls team will be "exercising their hearts" by supporting the Community Water Solutions in Ghana, Africa. Our goal for this community outreach project is to "adopt" a village which means we will be raising $1,000 for CWS! And how will the girls be doing this?? Lemonade stands, bake sales, bottle and can drives plus doing extra chores around the house are just some examples of the initiatives the girls take on in their fundraising efforts. One of the founders of CWS, Kate Clopeck, grew up here in Medfield and serves as a fabulous role model for my team of girls.

The mission of CWS is as follows:

To implement community-level water treatment businesses in communities of the developing world that:
1. are run by members of the community
2. provide clean water for residents of that community
3. generate economic growth and
4. empower women in the community.

The girls grasped on to the importance of clean water very easily, and they created this sign after one of our recent workouts.

So here's THREE BIG CHEERS for the Medfield team! What a great cause to support!

Boston Marathon 2010 Photos

DFMC Pasta Party: Receiving "my chair" honoring 15 years with DFMC!

Hopkinton: With my fellow Trinity College runners - GO BANTAMS!!

Finish Line: This was a tough one, and boy does it feel GREAT crossing that finish line.

Finish Line: With Richard Laronde, the father of Stetson from whom I run in memory. He lost his battle with cancer when he was 7.

Recovery Zone: Where's the application for DFMC 2011?!

2010 Race Report: Short Version

It wasn't fast, and it wasn't pretty...but I made it to the finish line. With all my hamstring issues, lack of long runs, weekly mileage and let's face it , MY AGE, I didn't have any expectations of a strong race this year. Nevertheless, I love running the Boston Marathon each year with the DFMC and I went into the race focusing on the event as a wonderful celebration of my 15th Boston Marathon and 30th marathon overall. It has been 15 years of wonderful races, great people, lots of laughs, plenty of aches, pains and frustrations, but I am SO HAPPY that I found my way into the fabulous running community here in Boston.

Race conditions were perfect. I pretty much guessed that the first half was going to be okay but that I would begin to struggle the second half. This was EXACTLY what happened! Lots of walking breaks in the second half, particularly on the hills and through water stations. Finally finished in 3:41, and I believe my qualifying time for over 45 years of age was 4:00, so I had some wiggle room. I guess that is one benefit to getting old!!

More importantly, this year I was thrilled be honored as one of the DFMC 100k Fundraisers, meaning that with the support of family and friends I've been able to raise over$100,000 for cancer research over these 15 years of running with DFMC!!! A very exciting lifetime achievement indeed.

So what's next?? I must be nuts, but I've registered for the Mt. Desert Island Marathon in Arcadia National Park in Maine (October). Super hilly (mile 20-15 is all uphill!) super hard yet a BEAUTIFUL course! These days I'm more about beauty and experience than speed plus it's always nice to have a new goal. Looking forward to long, hilly (and slow) training runs this summer.

Back Into the Woods...AGAIN!

I might need to rename this blog The Bluestocking Hiker/Biker. The pain and tightness in my hamstrings and hips after last week's 9 miles gave me a MAJOR message....STOP RUNNING AND LET US HEAL!! If I hope to run 26 miles in 4 weeks I have to seriously rethink what I'm going to do moving forward. My efforts to train through the tightness are just NOT working. My last long run was at the end of February (20 miles) so this year I'll be having an unusually long tapering period in my marathon training - like 2 months of tapering! I'm going to take Jack's advice and hammer some arc trainer workouts indoors, but on the others days I will be biking and hiking.

I was all excited when I first bought my mountain bike two weeks ago only to realize that most trails are closed during the muddy, wet months of March and April. And because of the heavy rains recently it REALLY is a mess out there on the trails. Certain trails are completely impassable because of flooding. This forces me out on the roads which makes me very nervous as most of my friends who bike regularly have been hit by a car at least once. I am not at all comfortable with those statistics. So yesterday I decided to take a trip down to the Cape and ride the 22 miles back and forth (total of 44 plus) on the Cape Cod Rail Trail starting in Dennis and ending in Welfleet. What a blast!! Weather was kind of crappy, but definitely doable, plus I headed off trail a few times when I saw what looked like a fairly easy trail through the woods. I'm guessing I biked about 50 miles and after some research on the Internet I was disappointed to learn that this was only equivalent to about a 10 mile run. However, one BIG bonus was I FEEL GREAT TODAY!! No aches or pains and I had FUN.

While I'm really anxious to start running again, I'm also very excited about mountain biking this spring and summer. NEMBA is a great resource for finding good trails, and at this point I'm looking for ones that are mostly ranked as easy/moderate. I can hardly wait to explore the Myles Standish State Park (Plymouth) and the Shawme Crowell Forest (Sandwich) this summer.

At least my biker chick adventures and research serves as a distraction to my (non-existent) marathon training frustration.

Back On the Road

After six days of NO RUNNING, I was back at it with the DFMC team in Lexington on Saturday. Ran 10 miles and felt good. Not great. Definitely still feel some tightness in the left hamstring, but I was happy to comfortably log some miles this week. Basically I've got 2 more weeks of training before beginning the wonderful tapering process. So my plan is to run easy this week tossing in a long run of 14-16 miles followed by a second week of easy running with a final long training run of 21 miles (Hopkinton to BC Annual Run). THEN I get to taper!

It is very doubtful that I'll be able to head out on the trails on foot or on the bike (Did I mention that I bought my first mountain bike this week??) due to all this rain. I actually bought a pair of waterproof pants at REI today - a necessary item for my upcoming "walking holiday" to Ireland with my oldest daughter after the marathon and an equally usefool article of clothing for wet and windy New England days. I tested them out today as I attempted to "trail wade" through Dover - what a complete mess!! But my legs remained toasty and dry thanks to my new REI pants. Gotta love goretex!

Marathon Training Robert Frost Style: You Come Too

Forget the Galloway Approach to Marathons. This week, due to my hamstring/piriformis issue coupled with a nasty cold/sore throat, I'm using the Robert Frost Approach to Marathons which consists of lots of rest and lovely long walks through the woods. Clearly this will not result in any PRs, but I'm actually ENJOYING this week!

For the past couple years I've been exploring (running/walking/xcountry skiing) the great trails in Medfield including Rocky Woods and Noon Hill. And just recently I discovered that Medfield is one of the 20 or so towns on the Bay Circuit Trail which connects more than 85 areas of protected land from Newburyport down to Duxbury. How cool is that?! I've already traversed my fair share of trails on the Bay Circuit in our area and am looking forward to exploring more when the weather gets better.

This prompted me to do a bit of research for trails in town neighbors - Dover, Sherborn and Westwood. Today I had the most FANTASTIC walk in the Noanet Woods in Dover. Isn't it great to realize that adventure and beauty is in your own backyard?! At some point I hope to start running along these trails, but for this week I'll listen to my body and enjoy the slower moments in life.

"The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleepl"