Rude Running: Rolling, Rolling, Rolling on the River

At best, I can qualify my years of running as sporadic. At young ages, my sister and I were on a track/cross-country team for kids in Portland, OR, coached by a marathon runner who may or may not have been fast or famous within the running community. I would have remembered, but I was 8 and was less than concerned by posterity. Track season was my least favorite, as I got easily bored running in circles (to this day I still am), but I loved cross country season. We would do our runs at the local Gabriel Park and the changing scenery left an impression. After we moved from Portland, I kept running. There was even one night that I had to study for a geography/earth sciences test, and I remember recording the notes that I had to memorize onto a tape so that I could listen to my notes while I ran.

After I started high school, the running dedication stopped. That is, until this past October, when I moved into Cambridge.

I began running along the Charles River. I would run across the Longfellow Bridge, which is one of the bridges that connects Cambridge to Boston, and then along the Esplanade. After that, I would have my choice of bridges to cross back over--if it was an easy run, I would go over the Mass Ave bridge, if it was a longer, harder run, I would run all the way to Harvard and cross at the bridge there. The path never really leaves the river, though. Almost ten months later, it is still my favorite place to run in the whole city.

The other great thing about running in Boston is that you're basically never running alone, since there are so many runners. (Unless you go running on a Sunday afternoon in January after it has just snowed, you will be a little lonely. Not that I've done that...)

This past Tuesday night run, I took my camera with me...see below for a quick tour of my favorite 4-mile run!