Thursday Night's Heat Wave

Thursday night has quickly become my favorite night of the week... the "new Friday" according to fellow DFMC runners. It's the night we meet at Crossroads to endure long, hard runs with teammates, and we all struggle together. The faster we run, the quicker we can make it back to the bar - for beer. and pizza, and our favorite bartenders Linsey and JJ. But this Thursday was especially awesome. It was 70 degrees out at 6pm on December 3!!! SEVENTY! Here I was dressed for a typical late-fall blizzard in my spandex pants and long sleeved top (thank GOD I opted out of the gloves and headband), and some of my teammates were wearing tank tops and shorts! I guess I forgot to check the weather pattern. Anyways, there was a pretty big group of us that decided to all do the Charles River to the Eliot Bridge (8 mile loop), so we set of with Tyler leading the pack, a nice, slow 1st mile, and then continuously sped up with each mile. Half way through, I ended up running just with Tyler and Shawn - two amazingly fast marathoners (didn't quite know what I was getting myself into!). I was keeping pace with them at 7-minute miles for just about 7 miles, and then the last mile, I was beat. I told the guys to just "go ahead without me - I didn't want to 'hurt my shins'" (which was really code for, 'I'm dying - can't.run.anymore.'). But they insisted that I persevere through the last mile and to "finish strong"... so that's what I did (or at least TRIED to do). When we got to the Mass Ave Bridge I couldn't have been happier. Crossroads was just ahead in the distance... Shock Tops and Cheese Pizza were not not far away :)
The best part of the night is always getting back, congratulating people on their good runs, and then kicking back and talking amongst your teammates! Caitlyn - a Colby alum and DFMC first-timer, me, and Sarah talked for a long time about NESCAC and college sports - and Sarah even started a page for all of us DFMC NESCACers :) - Check it out! www.dfmcnescac.webs.com/
Andrew and I ended the night Christening Crossroads' first ever Scorpion bowl, along with Mike, Lauren and Tyler, and played BU students in a Beirut Tourney... fun fun times!

Can't wait to see many of my teammates at the Holiday 5K Race Against Cancer tomorrow morning at 11am!