It was turning into a beautiful day, so I knew I had to figure something out as far as putting in a semi-long run on my own. As luck would have it, Rachel needed to go to her parent's place to pick up some supplies. They live in Bedford, MA. Nine miles away from us. Perfect!
I typically don't like to run this route, for obvious reasons. The main reason is that this point-to-point course concludes at my in-law's place. I usually like to run the other way, away from their place, but I needed to put in a solid run, badly.
The route itself is actually a very nice course over the 9 miles that it spans. Starting out in Lowell, I gently head down Gorham St and into Chelmsford, with a lot of rolling hills in between. The first three miles is basically the Wild Rover #3 course, less the turnaround. From there, I continue on Boston Rd and through Billerica center. It's about another three miles down Concord Rd before I reach Nagville.
Here's the course profile:
Boston Rd was partially submerged due to the recent rain, but it wasn't impassable like Middlesex St was a couple of weeks ago.
The first five miles is relatively flat. The fun starts around mile 5.5 near Billerica center. This part of the run is comparable to the final hill, and mile, at New Bedford: a steady hill climb for about a mile.
My goal was to run the first 6 miles at about VDOT pace (7:40's), and then marathon pace (6:40's) for the final 3. Once again, I failed at properly pacing myself, but the run itself felt great from start to finish. Confidence is starting to slowly return.
Here are my splits for this run:
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