On our way to Boston
The third Monday in April, a tradition unfolds;
A storied footrace, along Boston’s great roads.
Just as spring settles in and blossoms show,
The Boston Marathon gets ready to go.
The runners flow in from far and wide;
And Boston’s welcome radiates pride.
We run to remember battles lost and won;
The entrant, K Switzer, with bib 261,
Who opened the door for women to run.
The memory of 13, that terrible wrong,
Lives on in the mantra: Boston Strong.
Dick and Rick Hoyt, who inspire us all;
Bill Rodgers, hometown hero, still standing tall.
Kelley, Salazar, Cheruyiot, DeMar:
Legends of running, but then so are
All the tens of thousands who toe that start line,
If only for these few hours of time.
Leaving Hopkinton for Boston, living a dream;
To run it is to know what this truly means.
Embraced by cheers, every inch of every mile;
When the going gets tough, they remind you to smile.
Through Ashland, Framingham, Natick and Wellesley,
Then the famed Newton Hills that unfold relentlessly,
Up over Heartbreak then down into the city,
The Citgo sign beckons, an ever-distant reality.
Past Fenway as Red Sox fans pour into the street,
Joining the throngs to encourage weary runners’ feet.
Just one mile to go, then the fabled turn:
Right on Hereford, left on Boylston, the finish you’ve earned.
The race may be over, but the memories will stay,
There is nowhere like Boston on Patriots’ Day.
Mother's little helper
Need a garment, especially an undergarment? Arwen's your man. Problem is, she steals as readily as she goes and finds, so various and sundry clothing items get snatched from suitcases as fast as you put them in there, with ninja-like speed and stealth, and then you discover them later in a dog bed or on the kitchen floor, or wherever Smaug's lair du jour happens to be.
I've just finished packing for Boston, and because it's springtime in Boston, that means packing for three seasons, and doing that for regular, everyday clothes, and again for running clothes.
And packing a bag for the dogs, who are of course coming with. Food, treats, balls, towels, leads, collars, brand new tags, medications, vaccination paperwork : check, check, check.
Stripes is already on high alert and is in hiding, in case all of this ostensible travel planning might involve her little furry, feline self.
I've succumbed to Tim's cold. Today I feel like a bag of poo. I'm hoping that it will have run its course by the time Marathon Monday comes around. Get it? Run?
winter to summer in 8 hours
Today was a weird day, but it made for some beautiful scenery.
I decided to do another 30km run, this after my last week's 30km run, which was already an encroachment into the pre-race taper period. My reasoning being: Tim's got a festering cold, and when you taper down your training cycle, you're much more susceptible to catching germs, because your body relaxes and lets down its defences. So I decided to just run pretty much normal mileage this week. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
It was also a good test for running in warmer weather. Even a couple of days ago, I was still running in long tights and wearing mittens to keep my hands warm. But this morning it was already 10 degrees celsius and getting warmer by the minute. By the time I finished my run it was around 16 or 17. What was cool...literally...was that on the north side of the road, i.e. the side that gets the most sun, there was little to no snow, yet on the south side and especially in the more forested areas, there was still a fair amount of the white stuff, and these patches of snow actually engendered regular, welcome puffs of refrigerated air all along the way.
This afternoon, I had to make a trip to Barrie, 90 minutes south of here, and by the time I got there my jeep's thermometer read 24 degrees. I was in the shopping centre for 20 minutes at the most, and just as I was paying for my final purchase, a drumming noise began...rain. Intense, Florida-calibre rain, with hail and lightning and claps of thunder. I waited that out, and when I got back in the jeep the temperature had plummeted to 14 degrees - in the space of 20 minutes.
On the drive home, every watercourse I saw along the highway was wreathed in a beautiful mist, as the warm air of the summer-like temperatures clashed with the still icy waters (Our lake, Rosseau, only just let go of its ice this past Friday). I stopped at Horseshoe Lake to take a few pictures with my phone. Yes, that's still a skiff of ice on the lake.
