Who's the tomato now?

Webb: Yesterday, I returned to A Very Dark Place. During SufferFestukah, I visited most of the place. Last night, I saw all of it. Philippe Gilbert claims to have doubted I had what it takes. I think I showed him otherwise. Cancellara, on the other hand, owned me in the 4th interval. Damn you Spartacus.

The suffering

Since Elle had been off to the pool and still seemed to beat me home, I had to do the workout with headphones and the laptop (instead of AppleTV). It was kinda cool using the headphones, even if I felt like I couldn't move too much.

Elle: Elsewhere, having taken a trip to a Very Dark Place the night before and not wanting to return quite yet, I did a very needed swim workout.

FRIDAY NIGHT WORKOUT: 1500M Pool Swim
200M: warm up
200M: swim buoy drill
200M: catch-up drill
200M: fist drill
400M: 4 x 100M (on 2:15)
200M: strong effort
100M: cool down

Elle: I hadn't been to the pool in a long time, and need to start getting back to swimming at least twice a week. I was indeed rusty, but with this low yardage workout, I was able to get my toes wet, and spend some time concentrating on my swim form.

Webb: I hopped off the bike at about 10:50PM, or put another way, with 14.4 seconds left in the Celtics-Knicks game, with the C's up by 1 point. Several anxious minutes later - C's won after some poor free throw shooting - I realized I was to be doing a long run with hills in less than 12 hours. Nutrition time!

SATURDAY MORNING WORKOUT: Hill Run w/ Shawn & Nathan
Tour of the Brookline Hills: 12.3 miles including Summit Hill Ave. and the Jamaica Way

Brunch @ Metropolis w/ Nathan, post-run

Webb: We met our SEAC friends Shawn and Nathan at SEAC around 10am. I thought we would run to Summit Hill Ave (about 3 miles), do some brutal repeats and return to the store, tallying 8 or 9 miles. Shawn, however had other ideas and was quite persuasive. He had us beginning with Summit Hill and visiting a few other good run spots around town.

Summit Hill is about 200 feet of gain over 0.4 miles. I'll leave it to the mathletes to figure out the average grade. All I know is it was Jens Voigt time.  As it was, Shawn and Nathan dropped us in a hurry. We descended the other side and realized we had lost sight of them. I had a rough idea about Shawn's route. Elle and I made a quick adjustment to go back up Summit Hill from the other side (steeper, if possible) and set off on a new course to cut them off further up the route.

After we left Summit Hill we headed for Olmsted Park and Jamaica Pond, part of The Emerald Necklace. (The Emerald Necklace was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York City's Central Park and many others in a brilliant career.) As we looped around the western side of Jamaica Pond, who did we see but Shawn and Nathan cruising towards us. We did an about-face and joined them heading towards Arnold Arboretum, another jewel (as they say) in the Emerald Necklace. From there we separated from the guys to return to the store while they tacked on some tough, beautiful miles in the Arboretum. Writing this has put me in mind for an entire tour of the Emerald Necklace, beginning with Boston Common and ending in Franklin Park. It would be a big day for us. Stay tuned. If we do it, we should take plenty of photos.

Elle: Since Shawn had assured us that we were just doing 9-10 miles, I wasn't worried, and did my best to keep up with the guys and get a good, hill run in. However, even after we said our goodbyes, and headed back early, we ended up logging over 12 miles. Note to self: don't trust Shawn. I love Shawn, don't get me wrong, he just gets a little too excited about running, just ask Nathan, who stuck with him and ended up running somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 miles. Even though I originally thought we were just going to Summit Hill, I'm glad we went on an adventure run instead.

However, by the last mile, I was ready to be done. Webb was having some trouble, but when we stopped, it just got too cold (38°F, 29°F with wind chill). So for the last mile, with Webb's blessing, I took off towards the store and the warmth. This past summer, when I was trying to keep up with Webb and our friend Lenny on a bike ride, Webb would yell back at me, "Hey little tomato, catch up!", you know, from that joke that Uma Thurman tells at the end of 'Pulp Fiction'. As I took off for that last mile, I yelled back at Webb, "Who's the tomato now?!?".

Eventually everyone made it back to SEAC. Shawn had to take off, but Webb, Nathan and I decided to go to brunch at Metropolis, in the South End, just down the street from SEAC. Yum.

Webb: mmmmmmm .... pancakes.