The plan was to meet up at 7 PM at the circle in town. I wanted to get in some good mileage. I thought about running earlier in the day. Then, I decided that I would run a few miles before the run and a few miles after the run instead. I got started around 6:20. That meant that I would get less than 5 miles in.
The weather was beautiful yesterday, but this evening not as much. It actually wasn't that cold for December. It was in the mid 40s. However, it was very windy and that made it feel much colder. I didn't quite know what to wear. I had to put on a jacket over a long sleeve top. It was just too windy. At times, I/we were in the wind and it was freezing. Other times, the wind was gone and it felt warm.
I started off heading south past the YMCA. I figured that I would run to the end of town and then head back up Broad Street and see where I was at. It was a great start because I was going downhill. The legs felt awesome. I went almost the whole way to the end of town, but cut across through an industrial area.
Instead of running up Broad Street, I decided to explore some houses behind there. I'm not even sure what road I was on, but I came out at Mitch's Market. There were a couple nice houses in that area. I then ran down to the high school.
As I was by Shafer Elementary School, I saw a guy running. At the high school, I saw a woman on a bike. I thought it might be Gayle, but it was too dark to tell. When I got back to the circle later, she was there with her bike, so I knew it was her.
I ran through the school parking lot and around some of the neighborhood off of the Mitchell Avenue parking lot. There were some decent lights there too, but nothing too great. I ran back to the school and back toward the circle. There was some uphill now that was kind of tough. I saw that I could get in 4.5 miles before the group was going to meet, so I ran around the circle to hit that point.There was only 5 of us total for the run, but it was a fun time. I had no idea where we were planning on running. Plus, I was wearing dark clothes. Even though I'm normally faster than the rest of the group, I let them lead the way.
One of the first cool houses we saw had lights hanging over a tree and you could actually run under it. There were some beautiful houses that had more traditional lights. They seemed to work. We ran out toward the high school and then into that neighborhood behind it. I guess that is called The Gardens. I'm from Nazareth, but never actually knew that.
We crossed Route 191 after that and ran through that neighborhood. We ran up Rose Inn Avenue, which is actually kind of a gradual climb. I was disappointed to see that the Andretti houses didn't have many lights. In that area, there was a nice house. It was a beautiful house and they had a huge Santa on the roof. The problem was that it was on the back of the house. We couldn't see it too well.
We then left that area and ran back through town. We ran by Moravian Hall Square. I never realized how big that place is. They had a nice set of caroler statues out. After that, we had to stop by a baseball field. Jennie and I both graduated from high school in 1999 and our class put a time capsule there. Neither of us could remember what was in it.After that, we ran to Elyssia's house/business. She had a nice display in front of their business. It was small little houses/businesses. That was as neat as anything we saw on the tour. She came out to chat with us and take our picture. We were near the circle, so after a few minutes of chatting, we ran back there.
Everyone else was done, but I had more miles to do and Gayle had to ride home. I ran toward her house. It was downhill and I had run easy for the tour, so I started to open it up a bit. The tour was almost 5 miles, so I was happy to get that much distance in. That meant I only had less than 6 miles of running left to get to 15 miles.
I ran back to the high school and through the one neighborhood next to it. Gayle lives near there and left me at that point. I wanted to avoid a basketball game that was getting out, so that was why I ran in the neighborhood. I looped around the new middle school. I head back toward the circle.
I got back into the main part of town with about 2.5 miles to go yet. I headed west out of town. I wanted to explore that area. It turned out to be decent. There were a few lights. The Holy Family Club was busy. This was a bit tough because it is so hilly around there.
After looping around those neighborhoods for some time, I headed back. The final 2 miles were quite tough. Running on a lot of concrete was starting to take its toll on my legs. My hip was getting sore too. I continued on though. Eventually, I did a short loop around the main part of town and finished up with 15 total miles.This was an awesome run. It was great to be able to break the run up into 3 parts. That made 15 miles much more bearable. Seeing the lights and running with friends was excellent. That segment was slow running, some walking and some stopping. That gave me some super easy miles. Then, I had enough left for the remainder of the run. Maybe next year I can organize this more and make it bigger. I'd have to find somewhere better to go to as well, since the lights of Nazareth weren't that great. I feel like people don't decorate like they used to.
I'm hoping I can recover well. I am quite sore right now. If I can recover, I plan on a long run again. I'm hoping I can run 20+ miles tomorrow. That may be a little difficult. I have been hitting the pavement a lot lately and at some point, I need to get back on to trails. Now that rain and warm weather melted a lot of the snow, I'll probably do that again. Maybe later in the week.
15 miles - 2:38:03 (10:32 pace)
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