Recap of Saturday's Run

I got up extra early on Saturday so that I would be sure to get to Boston College on time for the run! We were asked to arrive at 7:30AM at the Flynn Field House. With a bit of stretching, socializing and a few Dana Farber team announcements we were off on our run. From BC (approx mile 22) we took a left onto Comm Ave. running the course backwards. Running on the hills of Comm Ave were not a problem at all on Saturday morning as we all chatted about the warm weather, celebrity gossip and the logistics of marathon Monday. After running about 4 miles on Comm Ave, we took a sharp left at "the firehouse" onto Route 16/Washington St. going past the Woodland Golf Course, Wellesley Hospital, across I95 (128) through Newton and Wellesley.... Continuing up "Grossman's Hill", and past Wellesley College, and into Natick. This is my first time running past Woodland to Natick. My legs were feeling good as i was running with Deb, and running into fellow DFMC team member and old school Cincinnati neighbor Steve Boschert, and also running with other team member Susan. Most charities were training and running on the course Saturday which made for crowded sidewalks and lots of set up waterstops along the way. There was some cheering from the volunteers which was nice to see! Unfortunately Deb's leg was not cooperating from a nagging fibula situation. So around mile 10.25 we decided to turn back towards Boston and look for help/make a decision for what she should do. We ran for another mile or so when she decided she needed to walk and find Coach Jack. I wished her well and continued on back in running with Stephanie, a DFMC teammate i had just met, and then more with Susan. While running with Susan I learned what "Grossman's Hill" is, well, what is was named after... a hardware store at the bottom of the hill. Which I found sort of odd. There has got to be some more significance to that... but maybe not... as we pondered that running back through Wellesley and over I95, i caught up with Paul and Kevin at a waterstop. I decided to run back in with the two of them tackling the hills on Comm Ave. back to Boston College. These hills were different this time. Normally i categorize the "hills" into 3 hills. 2 medium sized hills and 1 last big hill- heartbreak hill. However, today after running 15/16 or whatever it was at that point, my mind was thinking I had already run 3 hills before we had even arrived to the final Heartbreak hill! One last waterstop at the bottom of the hill and as Kevin put it "Here goes nothing" we ran up the hill. I looked at my watch. it took us 4 minutes to run up it. Not to bad really. 4 minutes out of your full 4: XX marathon time, is nothing when you think about it! There were a few spectators giving out encouraging words at the top of the hill. i was thinking to myself how during marathon day, that crowd is going to carry me up that hill. no doubt about that. Once we hit the top, i noticed another bit of an incline that i had never even noticed before. I thought is this hill #5?!? Then i took it back, it wasn't even big enough to really be a hill... but I think i did officially change my count of these hills from 3- 4. I will go back and count again this weekend... :)