Camaraderie

ca·ma·ra·de·rie : a spirit of friendly good-fellowship

I can't think of a better word to describe the DFMC group runs and Thursday night Crossroads runs. This morning I attended my second official DFMC group run. This makes 4 total counting the unofficial runs on Thursday nights at Crossroads (12/10) and the New Year's day Crossroads run (aka the Welly Elly run, named when the run went from Wellesley to the Eliot Lounge instead of Crossroads). Unfortunately I missed the 12/17 Thursday night run and the 1/7 run in order to rest my achy knee and ensure I'd be in one piece for the group runs that week. Both nights I missed, I found myself missing running with teammates and talking with them after and meeting new teammates. Of course, the free pizza is great too, but as Brian pointed out in his post this week, It's not about the pizza (but it sure is delicious and appreciated!). Prior to today's run, I actually was able to meet Brian for the first time in person as well as Judith who was wearing the same 2004 MCM jacket as me.

This week's run was from the Mount Auburn Club in Watertown. What a hospitable experience. Paul, the club's owner was out bright and early directing the DFMC runners to parking near the club so we didn't get lost. If that wasn't nice enough, the club also put out a great food spread for the runners to enjoy upon our return . . . lots of bagels, cookies, OJ, coffee, yogurt, fruit salad, etc. I couldn't have thought of anything better to help recover from the frigid temperatures. Just as great as the club's support was the support of volunteers. While the temperature was in the high single to low double digits, the feel's like temps were about 2 degrees. I know I was a bit cold at times running . . .I can't imagine them standing still for hours supporting the runners with gatorade, water, a gatorade / water mix, pretzels, peanut m & m's etc. Thanks so much. . .we can't do it without you all!

This week I ran 13 miles with Janel. Janel is running in honor of mom who lost her battle with breast cancer. Her reason for running was to do something optimistic to honor her mom's optimistic attitude toward life. I knew the DFMC runners were an optimistic bunch in order to accept this challenge, hence the title of my blog, but to have a fellow teammate use that word to describe her reasons for running was pretty special. Janel has already raised more than half her goal in fundraising dollars which was also very inspiring. We ran a solid 10:00 min pace finishing at the Mt Auburn club in 2:11. We thought we'd run about 12.5 since we ran a little past the second water stop which was reported to be about mile 6, but driving my car the route on the way home, I was pleased we'd run an additional mile since my plan for this week was 12-14.

In other news this week, Dave set me up with a strength program this Thursday night in lieu of the Crossroads run. It was a good mix of legs, core, and upperbody work. He designed my program so even when working upper body, I'm also working my legs are core in order to maintain balance and proper exercise form. I definitely felt the work in upper arms, back, quads, and hamstrings on Friday and Saturday. If I can get over the fact that I feel really stupid doing squats, an incline press in a lunge position (or that other upper body move in a lunge position that I already forgot) AND if I don't fall over doing a single leg romanian (as shown in this article Dave wrote), adding these workouts to my routine should help keep me injury free and improve my posture to boot.

On the fundraising front things are going well. Since my last report, I've received donations from the Nagle family, the Muscatello family, former DFMC runners Lori Suher and Chris Wile, and Morrison and Abraham in Randolph. Thanks so much for your generosity! I also made part of my own contribution to my run at the end of December with more to follow later. Total stands at $1325 as of this posting. This evening I have a mailing to start putting together to keep up the fundraising momentum.