(Sunday Paper, Year VII, Issue 10)

Hey!

I’m back after a really fun time in the Carolinas and a really fun half marathon - I’ll have more on that later.

This week we’re getting back to the mini-series about the Boston Marathon route…

You’ll remember we already talked about a mile-and-a-half from the finish and the start line in Hopkinton.

Now, it’s time to talk once again about those dreaded hills.

The title calls the hills Miles 18-21, but really they start around mile 15 or 16.

There’s a big incline that takes you over I-95, and then at Mile 18 there’s a few big ones spread out over three miles.

I did write about the hills before - during the training for Boston Marathon number one - so if you’re new here you can check out what I had to say then by clicking here.

But this isn’t necessarily a repeat because this time - rather than focus on where the hills start - I’m going to focus on where the hills end. Roughly mile 21 or so.

If you’re someone who is running the Boston Marathon and reading this this weekend, maybe you’re like me and at the point of the training where the long runs are very long and you see the actual race within sight but there’s still a lot of training to go.

That’s kind of a metaphor for the hills in the actual marathon.

You can’t think about the finish line until you get through those hills.

It’s one last big hurdle to get past. But these pictures here at the right - that’s the sign that you’re over that hurdle.

That top one - that’s where you see the spire of whatever building that is at BC and you know you’re through the last of the hills.

Then you pass the school….and then that bottom picture is just before you hit a big downhill. (Which is a nightmare to climb if you’re headed in the other direction. But that’s not something we need to dwell on today.)

I ran through the hills on Saturday and I’ve run them a bunch now between the two marathons and it wasn’t until I stopped to take these pictures that it occurred to me that this was the first spot I took the girls to see the marathon.

I’m going to guess it was around 2009, because my middle daughter was about a year old - Kathy must have been at work and I drove in to see the marathon with my sister-in-law. She went to BC so she knew the good spot to watch from over there, and I think it was right by the main gate - that middle picture. (We walked from her apartment in Brighton and I’m still not sure how we got from one spot to the other - I am not great with the geography out by BC.)

So I thought that was a neat personal connection.

But now BC has come to symbolize something else for me - that entry point to the final five miles of the marathon.

They’re not hill-less - that downhill by BC allows me to coast a bit but some people find it very hard to go downhill at that point in the race…I thought it was a godsend in October.

But once you pass BC after about another mile you turn right and then left onto Beacon Street for that final straightaway through Kenmore Square. (Which we’ve talked about already.)

The hills are a challenge, that’s for sure.

But they’re not impossible.

You just have to get to BC.

I guess, for this BU alum, there is something appealing about BC after all.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

Two week’s worth here, though it doesn’t look like it. I thought I’d listen to and watch so much while I was away….nope. Didn't do either.

‘Letter To You’ - Bruce Springsteen
‘Medicine At Midnight’ - Foo Fighters
‘Future Nostalgia’ - Dua Lipa
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight

Notes

*I would like to say thanks once again to Julie Vick for taking the reins of the Sunday Paper last week so I had one less thing to worry about during my travels. I hope you were all nice to her. Did you buy her book yet? Here’s where you can support her in any way you’d like. (I do really recommend the newsletter. Once a month, fun to read, good information…)

*I finished the half marathon in two hours, two minutes, which was better than I was expecting. The Wilmington, North Carolina course is supposedly notoriously fast - a lot of people run that marathon in an attempt to get a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. I really loved it. I mentioned this after the last marathon - I’ll definitely be running a lot of half marathons in the future. The good thing about this result is that it’s not an unrealistic bar that I set - I wouldn’t want my first half marathon to be my best. (My first full marathon can fall into that category as well.) But I think it’s realistic to think I can do a sub-two hour half marathon.

*As for marathon training - Saturday we ran from Natick to the Finish Line, a total of 17.75 miles. I felt good just a week after the half marathon (which was a drop-down in mileage for me but I did run harder) and I think my legs are a little stronger than they were at this stage of the last go-around. I’ve also been really working at my core and I think that’s helping. And, I’m embarrassed to admit, I never took stretching very seriously, even with that last marathon. This time I’m stretching after EVERY run and I think that will make a difference. This was the long run for Week 12 - six more weeks until the marathon. I’m two-thirds of the way through training.

*I haven’t been great about putting this in every Sunday Paper but now it’s crunch time: A reminder that I’m running the Boston Marathon with Team Framingham, which means I am fundraising for my bib. This time around I am raising money for the Massachusetts Wonderfund. You can donate at this link. There’s also more detailed information about the charity there. Thank you so much for all of your support.

*You can get the details on all of my runs at my new-ish Instagram account @johnnyrunsalot.

*And the usual social media is still around: you can follow me on Twitter here and Like my Facebook page here.

*As most of you know, I’m a big baseball fan. I’ll probably have more words to write about the state of the sport sometime - but for now suffice it to say: I should be pretty upset about this work stoppage. But I’m not. And that’s the biggest shame of it all.

*One last thing if you’re interested - someone shared this recently and it seems appropriate for this week if you’re interested in a visual of the hills along the course.