Sunday Run

While a handful of runners made it out in the snow last Sunday and got 10-12 miles in, Mother Nature is stepping it up a notch to test people even further. Saturday will be very cold (single digits, crazy windchill) but there will be no snow. Sunday will most likely be a blizzard. The winter training season from hell continues… but you runners are tough!

So the plan is to change the Sunday Long Run to Saturday. We’ll also get an earlier than usual start, 7AM. We’ve run on Saturdays before and my biggest worry has been traffic. There is a substantial increase in cars on the road on Saturday morning versus Sunday morning. With towering snow banks everywhere you need to be extra careful out there. We’ll stick to the planned route and do our best to have water stops in the normal places.

We’ll meet at Brueggers at 7 and head right out. The route takes us up Main Street and out Franklin Street to Stoneham. The first variation is to to take Franklin Street all the way to Main Street in Stoneham, do not run on Summer Street, its too narrow on a good day! In Stoneham Center take a left on Main Street. Follow that to the intersection (it has a set of lights at it) of Main, Summer, and Marble. Take a right on to Marble Street. Marble will turn into Forest Street as you cross I93 and enter Winchester. The first water stop will be on your left at Eugene.

Running the half distance? Turn around and head back. The route has you turn right on Park Street and pass Friendly’s and the Stone Zoo before taking a left on Pond Street down to Grimsby’s. Follow West Wyoming to Main and finish at Brueggers.

In for the Full? Keep running down Forest Street into Winchester. Turn left on Highland Ave and up a hill to Winchester Hospital. Turn left on Reservoir Road and take in the snowy landscape along the northwestern edge of the Middlesex Fells. This is my favorite street in all the SLR routes. Of course it’ll probably just look like another snow bank to you. Reservoir Road will bring you back to Highland Ave. Left on Highland, follow that through a five way intersection, going straight across and up a hill, and keep running to the end of Highland. There you’ll find water stop 2.

After that stop you turn right on Main Street, Rt38,. This takes you to a rotary. As you follow the rotary counterclockwise there will be a small street followed by a major street. Turn right onto the major street. This will bring you to another 5 way intersection. Cross the Mystic Valley Parkway and bear to the right on Washington Street. If you pass a church you’ve done well, if you pass Winchester High School you went the wrong way. If you don’t pass either… good luck to you. Follow Washington Street to Forest Street, you’ll know you’re there when you see the Gingerbread Construction Company at the intersection. Turn right onto Forest and head back up some hills… some big hills. At the top of the hills you’ll be back at water stop 1 but now it’ll be water stop 3.

After that the plan has you running over I93 and turning right onto Park Street. Park Street will take you to Friendly’s. At Friendly’s turn right and run the backside of Spot Pond on Main Street, Rt28, in Stoneham. Turn left on Elm Street. Turn left on Woodland at the rotary and find the water stop at the Flynn Hockey Rink parking lot.

Now here you have an option. The route has you run Woodland to Pond, turn right on Pond and finish up by continuing on West Wyoming and turning left on Main Street. Woodland was troublesome last time we ran it, and there’ll be more traffic at this time this week…. and still no sidewalks. So from here you could head back to the rotary, continue on Highland, turn left on the Fellsway East and make your way through hills to Grimsby’s. The roads should be a bit wider, but this will be a little longer and hillier. I’ll leave that up to you.

Jannel has graciously volunteered to do the water stop again. I believe Sue Clough will also help out. I will be out and about as well.

Any questions? Who’s in for the cold but not snowing Valentine’s Day Edition  Saturday Long Run? 7AM Brueggers! Roll Call….

PS. Someone tell Jose.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2015 at 8:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.