Preppy Runner – Theodora Blanchfield

I know you’re probably getting sick of these sorts of posts…

BUT I HAD ANOTHER AMAZING DOUBLE-DIGIT RUN.

Backing up to last night…

Tina got here yesterday afternoon, and we did some walking around and shopping before realizing we were food- and beer-deficient. I know how much Tina loves a good beer, so we went to Pony Bar, an awesome beer bar near me in Hell’s Kitchen for a beverage (or two) and some food.

We went for some Post Road Pumpkin Ale and plenty of water to hydrate for today’s run.

I got their chicken sandwich with potato chips. The remoulade was a little too spicy for my sensitive tum, but I was feeling okay by the time I started running this morning. I love having potato chips or pretzels the day before a long run for some extra salt.

Afterwards, we took a walk to Billy’s Bakery for some cupcakes–mine was the red velvet one on the left; Tina got the Yellow Daisy Cupcake (yellow cupcake with vanilla frosting.)

We came back around 8 and I decided that we hadn’t quite had enough carbs, so I made some pasta for us.

Some brown rice penne (wasn’t bad!), chicken sausage, sauce and mozzarella. Boom.

We were in bed early, but it took me a while to fall asleep, thinking about today’s long run.

I had 20 miles on my training schedule. Yes, you read that right. That’s, like, from my parents’ house to the Garden State Plaza plus four miles. That’s…the length of Manhattan, plus seven miles. That’s a lot of miles. That’s only 6.2 short of the marathon, and the longest I will run before November 6.

(Whoever said running was cheap and you didn’t need a lot of stuff? They clearly have never run a marathon. This is just some of the stuff Tina and I set out for our runs today.)

I had 20 on my schedule and she was planning on 14-15, so I left first and ran to the Queensboro Bridge to meet up with Rebecca. I ran 2.5 miles there, and then we ran up 1st Ave to 97th, across to 5th Ave (97th, btdubs, is a huge hill.) I fell and wiped out hard a mile or two in. I was terrified I wasn’t going to be okay for the rest of the run, but I got up quickly and continued on.

We ran down 5th Ave (on the east side of the street, because the pavement is way smoother there and I wanted to stay on my feet) until we got to 59th, where I ran into Tina. Perfect!

(We are friends because neither of us take life too seriously.)

We were running the Fitness magazine Mind, Body + Spirit Games in the middle of our long run.

We also ran into Ali, Ashley and Ali’s coworker Michael (it was her first race!) before the race.

It was divided into men’s and women’s races, but the race was still pretty crowded.

To be honest, the race kind of sucked for me. I was at 7.5 miles before starting the race, so I hit my mid-point of my run during the race. About halfway through, I started feeling a little light-headed and my muscles started feeling tight. I took some Gu Chomps and walked for a minute, and Tina was nice enough to stop to walk with me, since neither of us were racing the race. (We ended up running it in about 39:00, nowhere near a PR for either of us, but a decent effort for mid long run!)

We finally finished the damn race and left the park when I was at just about 12 miles. We ran west to the West Side Highway and finished our last 7.5 miles there.

(This photo not PhotoShopped in the least.)

I was feeling rough from about mile 10-15, but once we reached our turnaround point at mile 15, I felt like a new woman. I was so happy to be almost done. After the race, I put some Gu Brew in my Camelbak, and I think the steady flow of electrolytes helped things. At mile 15, we stopped for a second and stretched, drank and got back to running.

Tina and I were awesome running buddies today–I was hurting during the middle miles and she pushed me through, and she was hurting as we were finishing up, and my excitement at almost being done carried her through.

We finally got to our end points, 20 for me, 15 for her, and stopped straight at the bagel store. Obviously.

I finished 20 miles at a 9:34 pace! You guys, that is epic for me. (My 20-milers from last year: here and here. Good runs, but my pace today was en fuego compared to last year!)

7-11 for ice and beer. [photo via Tina]

We came back and were all about bagels, beers and ice baths.

Dogfish Punkin Ale? OH YES.

What? I get to lick sweat off of both of you??? Sweet.

(Pro tip for marathoners: paint your toenails blue or purple. That way, when your toenails fall off, you won’t be able to tell which toenails are a mess and which are just painted.)

I dumped the ice over Tina for her ice bath, and then she got to take revenge on me and do the same.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Umm….

Okay, fine. I guess this is good for me.

Now it’s time to continue hydrating and celebrating that I ran 20 miles this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!