• Humidity, then rain •
[2 MIN READ]
Welcome to JH who joined for the first time courtesy of JulCee. Running from the 2.6-mile mark at Valley Green Inn down to the 5-mile mark below the stone bridge, we got to doing some chatting. He’d done his first marathon at Philadelphia this past fall and was lined up to do his second there again this coming fall. He was happy to run with me and the 10-minute pacers as we went along for that conversation. When he shared his finishing time of sub-3:30, it seemed obvious that he was being polite by tooling along at our pace.
Those of us going on from the 5-mile mark skipped SRC’s historical stop at the driveway of the Philadelphia Canoe Club and continued to CVS, the handy new stop just a few tenths of a mile further. There we found the members of the week’s advance team, A.A.Ron and Rob Ray, specifically those pacing 9-minutes, finishing up their own pit stop. With a little convincing, JH joined them and the rest of us watched them disappear.
By the time we reached the bottom of Shawmont Avenue, it had started raining. The rain released the humidity lingering in the atmosphere that made the day feel oppressive despite the mid-70’s temperature. Dutch hadn’t felt much joy in her effort until then. We ascended the hill at various paces and versions of running and walking.
Read Dutch’s take on the joy of Shawmont Avenue: To Shawmont or Not to Shawmont (ShawmontRunningClub.com)
Congregating at Roxy we prepared to finish the run. Except for me, everyone was doing a Ridge Avenue 14 miler. I lamented the absence of Quietman Tom and Tall Dave who were my primary motivation for completing the last Manor 16 miler. The pleasant rain gave me the motivation to go for a Manor 16 solo.
Read my take on doing Shawmont Manor with QT and TD: 6/14 Run Report (ShawmontRunningClub.com)
KayCee’s picture on Strava provided ample evidence that all the soggy 9 and 10-minute-pace runners reconnected for rides home. The Strava record also provided the evidence that I’d done my share. And so we are all that much more conditioned for future distance efforts courtesy of Shawmont Running Club.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 7/19/25), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination with added caption and correction (JH’s fall race is the Philadelphia Marathon, not New York as indicated in the email version of the newsletter)
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