I have run that loop over a hundred times. Every Saturday morning, 52 weeks a year, there is an old-school neighborhood footrace there, a classic event that has no entry fee, no prizes, no sponsors, no numbered bibs and no freeloaders (since everyone is a freeloader). If you think it is hyperbole for me to call it a classic event, I’ll just mention here that several times a year, in addition to its several dozen regulars, it attracts world-class Olympic distance runners. Numerous Olympic medal winners have run there. For several years Lynn Jennings was a semi-regular there, driving down from her home in New Hampshire several times a year trying to break 12:00 in the 2.5 miler. (My memory is fuzzy here, but I think she did not make it, that her best was 12:04).
My own personal best in the Fresh Pond Road Race was 17:02, on May 17, 1997. I remember the date because it happens to be the date on which I last got married. My best man and I ran it, and it was one of the few occasions where I ever kicked Stewart’s ass at any sport. I was in very good shape then. So was Annie, the woman I married that day. She’s still running marathons, and I am proud that she is, even though we are no longer together. As for me, I blew out my ankle two months later trying to keep a commitment I had made to my daughter Moriah to run a road race with her. Oh well, sometimes we make promises with our hearts, and our bodies just can’t keep them. I was on crutches the next day and have never been quite the same.
But it was nice to run the loop today for the first time in years. It was beautiful out, and I was feeling a lot of benefit from what I have accomplished, and chronicled here, over the past 3 weeks. My time was 36:05, a little off my personal best. But I ran the whole way, and it was the perfect workout for today.
Afterward I showered and took a quick Jacuzzi at the gym. I usually stay out of the Jacuzzi for hygiene reasons, but I needed it today. Then I got on the scale. I won’t dignify what the scale said by repeating it here. It was a hot day. I’ll just say that, as much as I might be charmed if the scale sweet-talked me into thinking my weight loss was already in the low twenties, the real message is that I have about 5 pounds of re-hydrating to do.
Tuesday, May 19
Fresh Pond - 9.21.2007
By the time I got to the gym today it was over 80 with brilliant sun, just too beautiful a day to stay inside and work out on machines. My new gym is less than half a mile from Fresh Pond, so I got into my gym rat stuff and jogged over there to run the 2.5 mile loop around the pond.
Posted by Steve at 9:56 AM
Labels: arithmetic of weight loss, cambridge, fitness, fresh pond, jogging, marathons, men's health, middle age, pounds, running, Stephen Windwalker, weight gain, weight loss, workouts
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I lived on Huron Ave in Cambridge for a while. I loved it there. What a wonderful thing Harvard Square must be this time of year with the students back and things rockin'!
Donna