Last 19 miles of TARC 50 course @ Blue Hills plus a little bonus mileage and gratuitous climb at the end.
Didn't get my long run in yesterday, so I ventured up to Trail Animal land (Blue Hills - Boston) for a run with the Animals. As a bonus to todays run, a couple of the guys had pledged $2 per total mile run (miles x # runners) to Haitian Earthquake Relief so getting more bodies out there meant more money donated - not a bad thing.
Started out at 7 with a 6 mile loop around Ponkapoag across the highway - pretty flat, but also pretty icy. Back to Houghtons for a car stop - refilled bottles and put the Kahtoola's on knowing that Chickatawbut and a couple other major climbs awaited us on the back 13.
Felt really good all the way around - no drop in energy at all. Added a bit of bonus mileage on a couple of missed turns - some of the trails are pretty faint, not blazed and hadn't been broken out and I was just blindly following the leaders and we overran a couple.
With about 3/4 mile to go and still feeling pretty spunky (I didn't know this was possible after almost 4 hours of running) myself and one other guy decided to eschew the official course route paralleling a main park road and opted to add some extra distance and gratuitous climb before dropping back to the road just before the headquarters. Came out by the road and saw the other group in the distance and kicked it into chase mode to chase them down before we hit the parking lot.
This has got to be one of the best long runs I've done in a very long time - felt great all the way around, ran almost all the climbs (I think the core exercises are helping in that regard with better climbing form) and had energy for a 1/2 mile sprint at the end. And 3 hours later I'm feeling no real after effects other than that nice mellow tiredness one gets after a morning 'well run'. And I'm just a few miles shy of my first 100 miles for the year.
Oh, and over $1000 raised for Haitian Earthquake Relief