I'm like buttah.....

.....cause I'm on a ROLL. hahaha

So, I think I found my motivation. Not sure how or where it was hiding, but I found it. Last week was very productive. I didn't run over the weekend because of the stair climb, but I got right back at it on Monday. After work I went for a run along the Charles River and went one bridge further than I usually go and it ended up being almost 9 miles. I felt great, it helped that somewhere along the run a group of some ivy league cross country runners passed me and I had a nice view for a while. Then I remembered, they're probably not even old enough to get into a bar yet and I felt old.

Tuesday I ran my usual loop from the Mass Ave. bridge to the JFK bridge, including the short distance from the parking garage to the river it ends up being 7 miles. It's a nice loop, I like it. On the Storrow Drive/Soldiers Field side I can do fartleks sprinting every other light post back to the Mass Ave Bridge. It mixes it up a bit. Then I noticed a few weeks back there are these weird numbers painted on the Mass Ave Bridge and I have been wondering what they meant and meaning to google them for a while. I finally looked it up. The numbers go in increments of 10s and every 50 they have the word "SMOOTS" with them. Apparently, its an MIT thing. Way back in the day they wanted to invent a unit of measure to record the distance of the Mass Ave Bridge from the Frat houses to the main part of the campus. One of the frats used the last name of the shortest guy in their frat because his name sounded 'sciencey' like WATT or AMP and so the unit of SMOOT was born. The Mass Ave Bridge is roughly 365 SMOOTS. It's fun to see the numbers go by as I run it and even more fun now that I know the meaning behind the numbers. I envision them laying the poor guy down on the bridge to measure it originally.

Wednesday was another awesome Ayer run with Kim. We did a 5 mile loop and I was so distracted chatting about the stair climb the previous weekend that I didn't realize we were FLYING! I think we shaved 30 seconds per mile off our pace from the previous week. Afterwards I hung out for a bit and watched as Ayer's newest runner cautiously took her first steps. Kim's daughter, Ryann, is going to skip walking and go straight from crawling to running.

Thursday, I wanted to do a little less than the 7 mile loop so I went from Mass Ave. to River St. I know the Western Ave bridge is close to 6 miles so that was a little longer than I wanted too. River St. ended up being 5.25 miles not bad and it went by really fast. I need to find some middle distance runs.

Friday, I tried running along the river in the opposite direction towards the Science Museum instead of towards Harvard. It's not as pretty and I don't really like it. I just went one bridge down, not all the way to the museum. It ended up being 4.4 miles. Not bad for a shorter loop, but I still want to find a different way to go if I need a short run. I just don't like that side of the river for some reason.

Saturday morning I got up early and met up with Kim and Shannon for a long run through Lowell. We avoided the hill. That made me a little sad. I like the hill. It was still a really good run. We did about 8ish miles from Shannon's house and I ran there so I ended up with a total of 11.7 miles. I think I averaged 10:00 miles, so I felt really good. I'm starting to feel like I might get back to the speed I had in Boston last year and I could potentially try for a 4:00 marathon in Chicago this year. That is, of course, assuming I do not get hit by another car this summer and it's not 83 degrees on race day.

Sunday, I wasn't going to run, but I got up and the sun was shinning and it looked so nice out I couldn't resist the urge to lace up my shoes and go out. I was going to just do a nice easy 4 mile out and back, but when I started I felt amazing so I kept running. It was just one of those runs that I felt like Forrest Gump and if I had my fuel belt and gels I could have kept running forever. I ended up doing the 7 mile hilly non-hill run.

So, here's my 7 day running streak:

Now, I really need to find a way to get strength training back into my routine so that I don't get hurt. I'm getting up close to 50+ miles per week and I know I REALLY need to get some strength or cross training in to prevent an overuse injury. But for now I'm just really psyched that I'm motivated and feeling good. I'll keep running and working on speed and hopefully find time and a way to fit in some other stuff. I gotta get on it before it gets really nice and I get my bike out.