Long run sunday

I look forward to Sundays because it's usually the long run day for me, as well as many runners I know, including my teammates.
Last Sunday, I ran from Brandeis up Comm. Ave and hit centre st. in newton which was approximately 6 miles and turned around, and headed back making the run 12 miles total.
That run was exciting, it was snowing lightly, but I didn't feel a bit cold since there was not much wind and I was bundled up pretty well. I ran the 12 miles in 1 hour and 20 minutes with a freshman teammate, Alex Hulse who originates from Colorado. It was somewhat pleasing to hear that Alex was enjoying the new england weather and finding the notorious "Heartbreak" Hills of comm ave to be somewhat challenging at the pace we were running. This is from a guy who comes from the Rocky Mountains near Boulder.
Nevertheless, running for an hour and 20 minutes at about 6:40 pace per mile up comm. ave is not an easy effort. I was pretty tired the rest of the day (Not to mention my legs felt it the next day).

This Sunday,
We met up again at 10Am at the gosman gym. It hasn't been snowing, but there is a ton of ice lining the sides of the roads. I ran the mile at the Harvard Open yesterday and finished 10th in a field of about 50 runners with a time of 4:31.
While I was not particularly pleased about the time, (Coach) John and I agree that it is a step in the right direction, and that it's a decent indicator of my fitness. John also noted that I outkicked 2 guys down the final straightaway, as opposed to struggling home like I had done in my few races last year as a freshman.
My freshman year was riddled with injuries. I had the beginnings of a stress fracture on the inside of my shin during December- January of my freshman year. So I haven't run very many track races in college yet. My outdoor season was short, I ran 2 1500s, each was a struggle. I came into my sophomore year with a much better base and I look forward to this year of track and field.
Anyways, now that I got most of that out...
The team headed out of the gym slightly after 10:15 -with a total of about 9 guys- and headed towards Norumbega and then the Meadowbrook hills of Weston. A few of us split off, I ended up running most of the run with Ben Bray (one of my roommates/ a soph) and Chris Brown (freshman). Ben and I having raced yesterday, decided to run a comfortable pace and gain some recovery. Ben had a PR in the mile yesterday of 4:19.1, a pretty quick run. We were both feeling the need for some comfortable running today. The three of us ran our usual meadowbrook hill run, until instead of taking our usual right at the meadowbrook train tracks to head towards waltham, we turned left and discovered a new run that apparently leads to Wayland. We ran on a path parallel to these train tracks and electric wires that took us for miles in this uncertain north/west direction. It was prety neat, Ben indicated that we could see the horizon ahead of us and that it looked like the trail just kept going for miles and miles. We could literally see more than a mile of trails ahead of us.
It was a pretty neat run, eventually we turned around and ran home and intersected the usual run that takes us back to waltham and Brandeis. We ran the meadowbrook 8 run which is meant, like the title indicates, to be 8 miles but added on another 4 miles along this new trail.
We ran for about 1 hour and 24 minutes at a pretty reasonable pace. When I say reasonable, I mean a comfortable 7 minutes per mile. As we ran the final miles back to Brandeis, I took off my long-sleeve and held it in my right hand as I trotted along. Again, it was a really nice day for running. The sun was out, the temperature was around 35 degrees F. I ran in tight pants, long sleeve-shirt, while wearing gloves. The final miles I felt pretty comfortable and took off the long-sleeve.
I've been feeling pretty comfortable on my runs for about a few weeks. I think I went into my race on saturday not expecting what it would feel like to run a mile, again. Now that I have the race as an indicator, I'm ready to head home for break and get some solid training in before I start racing in 2009.
That is,
after I finish my finals by wednesday... gotta get back to studying...