Preppy Runner – Theodora Blanchfield

Yesterday’s run was not awesome.

It was not terrible, but it was nowhere near as awesome as some of my long runs have been. I went to sleep too late on Friday night and woke up after about 6.5 hours of sleep yesterday morning to go meet Rebecca downtown so that we could get in some miles together.

(Photo via Rebecca)

I about 3.5 miles ran down through the city streets to meet Rebecca at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. We ran west and ran over to the West Side Highway. I was planning on doing 16 miles, and she had 13 on her schedule. She was running the 5th Ave Mile race, so we planned on running to the start and then I would turn around and finish solo.

I was running a bit late to meet her, so the first few miles definitely sucked, because I was trying to run faster than I should have been, and I was stressing about keeping her waiting. We met up and headed west on Barclay over to the West Side Highway. All I kept thinking was “can I Gu yet?”

I held out until mile 6, and let me tell you, Gu has never tasted so good. I’m not sure if it was the humidity–it was incredibly humid–or I was just tired, but I never really got into my groove. We ended up crossing at 79th Street and running across the park to 5th Ave. I ran through the start of the race before splitting up with Rebecca.

I re-entered the park–and saw Erica!–and ran the rest of the loop before exiting and running back downtown.

Quack.

I’d underestimated my mileage, so I ended up running down to Murray’s Bagels, grabbing my bagel and running home to get to 16. I managed to keep an average pace of 9:54, but all of the miles after 10 were definitely above 10-minute miles. I just looked back at some of my past long runs, and 9:54 seems to be my consistent long run pace this year. I’ll take it.

After an ice bath and bagel, I had to make myself presentable and head crosstown to meet my friends for some football-watching! My adopted team yesterday was Ole Miss–my friend Shannon’s husband went there and is the NYC alumni chapter president.

I walked the mile crosstown to let my legs recover a bit.

Well, hello.

I mean, it was nice to see my friends and all, but it was really nice to see a pint of Goose Island.

Go Ole Miss? (Also, my arms do not look that small in real life. Optical illusion.)

What? The marathon’s still 6 weeks away? I have to run 20 miles again? Oh no.

I did not actually have a drink with a straw, yet it looks like that for some reason.

I would like my sunglasses back, please.