Saturday January 24th "The Infamous Hopkinton Run"

Well I used yesterday as a day of rest, although I spent a great deal of time in class and studying so I think that should count for something. This morning was the morning of the "infamous Hopkinton run". We all carpool out to the start line of the Boston Marathon to run 5 miles out on the course and then turn around and run 5 miles back.
For those of you who are not familiar the first half (or more) of the marathon course is mostly down hill which take a great toll on your quads because you are consistently "breaking" along the way. So when we run the out and back at the start line, not only do we run 5 miles downhill but then we must turn around and run 5 miles up hill (and that hill is much bigger than you realize while running downhill!).
In the past this run has not only been brutal because of the course, but it also is a bit mentally defeating as we are not used to running back into Hopkinton and it has been horrendously cold for the last few years.
Saturday morning many of us met at Forever Fit at 6:45AM to carpool out to the start line. Once we arrived Vic dragged us out of our cars so we could fill out our BAA application, it's time for things to start becoming official. I am running the Boston Marathon!
Thankfully the weather wasn't nearly as cold today as it hsa been in past years or past weeks. I got started with Emily and in all of our excitement we started out at a very fast pace. We slowed down and found Christie and the 3 of us worked on settling into a comfortable pace. Just over a mile into the run, we all really had to pee!! The only problem with this is there were huge snowbanks in the way of getting to any tree's....hmm. Well thankfully the snowbanks are huge and work just as well if you have friends that are willing to look out for you. It reminds me of an advertisement Nike used to run of a runner peeing behind a tree with her friend watching out and it said was "Runners yea we're different".
We continued to settle into a comfortable pace, ran along enjoying the morning and eachother's company, and of course the grumpy drivers on the road who felt we should not be on the road running.
Overall I am very happy with my run.
Run Info:
Distance: 10.0 mi
Time: 1:36:56
Average Pace: 9:41
Weather: really cold!