Marathon Training--Bode Miller style

So after all the soda tax conversation here, I thought I'd give a little running update. The short version--training is going well. The slightly longer version is as follows.

I've had a pretty good week running-wise. On Sunday, I did 14 miles with the Tufts crew, and felt pretty good. This was followed by a really good 7 miler Tuesday. Tuesday was the kind of day where I set out to just do 5ish, and ended up feeling so good that I did more.

But back to Sunday, for the past several weeks, my runs at Tufts have included "the Hill." Here's a little bit about "the Hill." While I didn't run it for the first month or so I was running at Tufts, I kept hearing people talking about "running up and over the hill" but I didn't really know what they were talking about. I saw this hill as I was running, but it was super steep and I kept thinking to myself "there's no way that's the hill they are talking about, it's crazy to make people run that!"

And then, one day in January, I realized that yes, that hill I had been seeing all along was in fact "the Hill." It's about 2 miles long, super steep at first before becoming a bit less steep and more rolling as you get towards the top. The first time I ran it, I thought I was going to cry....it just kept going. But then, as I kept running it each week, it started getting easier and easier. And this past week, I actually started to enjoy it. Weird, I know.

It helps that when you get to the top, our wonderful Tufts coach is there, taking a ridiculous number of pictures and providing water, Gatorade, mini cookies and jelly beans to fuel us up for the rest of the run. To the right is a picture of me and my running buddy Ann making our way up the last part of "the Hill"--determination at its finest.


For those of you wondering about the title of this blog post, Thursday is usually a running day for me. But today, instead of running, my wonderful mother and I went skiing at Cannon Mt in New Hampshire, which just happens to be Bode Miller's "home" ski mountain. Despite the questionable weather--it was a great day. I don't know if skiing all day is entirely the same as a run, but my legs sure are tired!

PS: Thank you very much to everyone who has supported me in my fund raising efforts for the Boston Marathon--I really appreciate all your generosity! I still have more to go--so please visit http://www.tuftsmarathonchallenge.com/runners/miriamst and help me make each and every mile count!