Always pick a winner

The New York Time reported today about the problems with removing the defective ICD leads that around 150,000 people in the United States still have in them. The lead removal is tricky and if you must have it done, choose a doctor who has done it numerous times. One of the top lead-removal doctors in the country is Dr. Epstein at Brigham and Women's. He's the one who did mine. Mine wasn't defective, but it needed to be repositioned and that necessitated removing it and placing a new one.

Journeying around the 'boro

Last year I decided that I should run every road in my little town, Foxboro. I called the highway department and they told me there were approximately 90 miles of town-owned streets. I assume that number doesn't include Interstates 95 or 495 and possibly not even the state-owned routes, such as 106 and 140. Ninety miles is nothing if you're running 20-40 a week, right? I should be able to finish this quest in a couple of weeks.

Next I asked for a map. Dead silence. Finally the person on the phone said, "We don't have one. But you might try town hall." Huh?

So I went to town hall. They didn't have one, either, but they did scrounge up the one you see in the picture above. It may have been produced some years ago by one of the real estate agents. Good enough.

Armed with my map and MapMyRun.com I started mapping out routes every weekend that included new (to me) streets. My two running partners have not been particularly keen on this idea so I restrict my little adventures to my solo runs.

A year later, I have not completed as many streets as I had hoped to. In fact, I've been on a hiatus since about September. This morning, though, I finally got a chance to run solo and without having to contend with snow or ice or extreme cold. I took off and decided it was going to be a goofy running day where I would try to map out 5 or 6 miles in my head as I ran but be open to various possibilities as I progressed. The result was 5.43 miles and two new roads. I feel like I'm back in the game and I can't wait for my next opportunity to add to my "collection"!

For anyone who feel stagnant in their running/walking/biking routine, I highly recommend devising strange challenges such as this. Maybe I'm weird, but I feel so re-energized about my whole running life right now that I can't wait until the next time I strap on my Asics and pound the pavement!