Sunday Run

Last Week – Last week was kind of an adventure. I ever so slightly changed the routes up for several reasons. (1) The sidebar has always said week 12 was 9 miles, the maps have always been 12.5 miles, and nobody pointed that out to me until last season. (2) The long run was always less than 22. Mentally for someone preparing for a marathon not getting to 22 can make someone nervous. (3) I’m trying to minimize the number of water stops in the routes to make it easier to organize and volunteer. This lead to some complaining, some confusion, some wandering during the run, some stopping early, and rumor has it some Ubering. The good news is everyone lived! I, for one, had a very pleasant run. Thanks Dan, Lois, and Tom for helping us get through the run.

This Week – Unless Manchester, NYC or Philly are in your future, it’s Race Month. October brings marathons and halfs everywhere and each week we’ll have people heading somewhere. The New Hampshire Marathon, Maine Marathon, and Wineglass in NY are all this weekend, as is the Rockfest Half at Hampton Beach. Good luck if you’re running any of those. For the rest of us, keep up the training and taper if its time! As this training focuses on Baystate, we’ll be winding down the miles. Over the next week or two we give our bodies a little recovery time as we head into our October races. I call this period “Don’t Do Anything Stupid” time. Your training is done and your legs got you this far. Human nature will be that you’re nervous that you didn’t do enough, you’ll think about that one long run that didn’t go right or you cut a few miles off and you’ll feel the need to cram in one last hard training run. Don’t do that! Recover instead. Your taper runs should be at the same intensity as your training runs, but the miles will be less and the toll they take on your body should be minimal. With that in mind we’ll all head through Swains Pond and the long runners will continue out to Farm Street.

Route maps on Strava:
Full 14.8M
Middle 11.0M
Half 7.0M

Turn-by-Turn Directions (click box at start of section to navigate)

Start – We’ll cross Main Street and head up East Foster to the Melrose Common where we’ll turn right at the Common onto 6th Street. This will turn into Swains Pond Ave and bring you up into a wooded section of Melrose. When you reach Swains Pond and Turners Pond there will be a stop sign, turn right here to stay on Swain’s Pond Ave. This will eventually bring you to Lebanon Street where you’ll take a sharp right. Lebanon will bring you to a set of lights where you’ll turn left on Forest Street which will lead you across to Main Street in Malden. Citizens Bank will be across Main Street with a water stop.

Section 2 – Leave the Citizens Bank parking lot onto Winter Street. Follow this past the Oak Grove T station to a five way intersection. Cross straight through the intersection on to Glenwood Street. Wind your way up to Highland Ave where you turn right with a very quick right onto the Fellsway East. Make your way through the hills down to Grimsby’s. If you’re running the half route you can turn right at Grimsby’s and head back to Brueggers for 7 miles along West Wyoming and left on Main Street. If you want a little longer of a run continue with the full route runners on to the LynnFells Parkway and keep going to you get to the knoll across from Melrose High School for a water stop. Half runners can then head up to a right on Melrose Street and a right on Main Street for an 8 mile run.

Full 3 – From the knoll, continue on the LynnFells Parkway until you reach the intersection with Main Street in Saugus. Turn left and follow Main Street, which will become Farm Street in Wakefield, and turn left onto Nahant Street. This will bring you across to Main Street in Wakefield where a water stop will be waiting for you at Nick’s Pizza… or maybe Dunkin Donuts.

Full Finish – Its taper time so we’re already heading back to the finish. Head south on Main Street from Wakefield to Melrose and finish up at Brueggers. That’s it, you’re done already.

Water Stops – I would like the full 15 this week. I think Tom and Lois are helping, maybe Dan, if I get two helpers committed I’ll be able to run the whole thing.

Roll Call – Who’s in?

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