As I said last week, I headed to the Eastern part of the state on the weekend to take part in the New Charles River Run on Sunday morning. Of course, I didn’t head down just for that. I worked a little food tour of a few of my favorite stops while in town.
I met my friend Ed for dinner at Redbones in Davis Square on Saturday night. It had been too long since my last Redbones visit. I am thinking it had been a least 18 months. For those who don’ t know Redbones is bbq heaven. It was a far too regular stop of mine while I lived in town, especially once I learned to enjoy their take out option. Along with fantastic bbq, Redbones offers over 20 taps of microbrews. I went with a nice Anchor Steam out of San Francisco, it hit the spot. For dinner, we split a bbq hash appetizer, perfect as always. After much deliberation, I went with a pulled pork and baby rack ribs combo. I had the race on Sunday, so I didn’t want to go too over the top and get something like their bbq belt combo. Ed kicked it up a notch that I didn’t need to go to after dinner. We took a walk over to JP Licks for an ice cream cone. I went with their cow tracks flavor, good stuff. I hadn’t been in there for years.
After dinner, I went to find my hotwired hotel room at Le Meridian in Central Square in Cambridge. As usual, hotwire hooked me up nicely. It was a very nice hotel. I enjoyed the flat screen and very nice seating chair and foot stool during the evening and rested up for the big race in the morning. I saw on the 11 o’clock news that the showers for Sunday were now supposed to hold off until the afternoon. I was pleased.
It was very foggy when I got moving on Sunday and a little soupy. I met Ryan at the starting point for the race. I was psyched to be running with Ryan on Sunday. Ryan is much faster than me and does further distances but he said he would run with me for the race. I was a little afraid that I would mess myself up by keeping up with him. He did it perfectly though and stayed a half stride behind me. We each had our Ipod’s going but still managed to crack a few jokes and share a few comments during the race. My legs hurt a bit at the start but once we got going and the crowd at the start thinned out, I was in much better shape. I felt like I was doing well the whole race until the last kilometer and I was tapped by that point. I lowered my time from my last two races to 31:00 and a mile pace of 9:59 but I did not beat my best from the Longmeadow race. When we made the turn to see the clock at the end, I was disappointed. It was great to run with Ryan though and as always I enjoyed the accomplishment and the supportive nature of the running community. It was nice to run around the Charles as well. They had some nice freebies afterwards. I was able to grab a bagel, a banana and a free can of Vitamin Water. I’m not at all into the energy drinks but their dragonfly flavor hit the spot pretty well after the race. I am always famished after these things.
After dropping Ryan off, I went back to the hotel to shower up and check out. Score! I got a nice free on street parking spot upon my return. After checking out, I hit my usual Boston spot of Anna’s in Davis Square for a super carnitas burrito and cheese quesadilla. I love Anna’s. They have to serve the most consistent burritos anywhere. Always stuffed and rolled to perfection.
I am now six races deep for the year. I am looking at one on July 12th in Enfield Ct, but its at 6:00 at night, I am a little fearful of it being too hot for me. After that, I am signed up for the Petit Family Run in Plainville, CT on July 20th. You may recall the story from last year, the family in Cheshire, CT who were victims of a home invasion. The wife and two daughters were killed, horrible event.
The long range goal is to try my first 10k in the fall. I have a training program thru Nike.com which I am already behind on. There is one 10k in Suffield, CT in September and a Boston Firefighter one in October. I really want to do the Firefighter one but have to start building up. My last kilometer in the 5k’s are always so tough, I can’t imagine doubling the length now, but hopefully I can get there.
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