Cutback Sunday

This week was a cutback week, which meant 1o miles for the Sunday long run. I decided to head over to Bodman Park, the nexus of the Jersey Shore Running Club’s marathon training universe. It was the first time I have been there in a couple of months – to my glee there was a 100 mile patch waiting there for me for the runs I logged at Bodman Park in 2008. Cool stuff, I am pretty sure I am going to pick up an Endurance Bag in the next month or two so maybe I’ll stitch it on there.

Part of the decision of going to Bodman Park was I figured if I was only doing 10 miles, I might as well do some hill training as well. So I made it a point to hit Beacon Hill, which comes up around mile 7 of the route I took. Local runners would know this hill as the last downhill in the Indian Trails 15k. It is hard enough to run down this hill without killing yourself – I was running up it, so I was going much slower but working considerably harder. I’ve got the elevation chart below. The chart is a little deceiving I think. “Kick Ass hill” is at mile 3 and looks like the worst one here, but I think Beacon Hill is far worst – maybe it’s just because of where it falls on the course, I don’t know.

It was nice to run in shorts today – I have been getting a little tired of running in layers and finishing with frost all over me. I would be pretty happy if temperatures hovered between 30-40 degrees for a while, but I am sure I am not done with the frost just yet.