The Best 14 Miles of My Life

Finally, finally, finally, I had an amazing long run!

I’m choosing to believe that this and my great tempo earlier this week are part of a positive trend towards my running not sucking again.

Everything about it was great.

I ran Summer Streets down to the Brooklyn Bridge to meet up with Rebecca and was ecstatic about my pace. I hit 3 miles just around 27:00. I knew this was too fast a pace to sustain for 11 more miles, but I was so happy to see a pace that was more than a minute faster than last week’s long run.

As we continued up the gradual incline that is Park Ave., sure enough, our pace dropped, but I was still feeling great. Last week, every mile felt like an eternity; this week, every mile felt like just a minute or two had gone by.

In past years, I alternated Gu with margarita shot bloks. Gia wrote a great post on fueling recently, talking about taking something that is easily portioned, which was a great point. On a 10-16 mile runs, I have a hard time fueling because I usually fuel roughly every 55-60 minutes. If I’m running about two hours, like I did today, that means typically only fueling once but sort of wanting more towards the end. I ended up taking shot bloks today at miles 7ish and 11ish (3 the first time; 2 the second time.) It was sort of uneven timing, but it seemed to work fine.

From Summer Streets, we ran over to 72nd, and I started running up the west side of the park. I split with Rebecca and started running towards the 102nd Street transverse. I was supposed to meet my Junior League run club at the Boathouse, and I was running really ahead on both time and mileage, so I started running toward the way they’d be running in hopes of meeting up with them. They were running late, so I ended up meeting up to them pretty close to the Boathouse, when I’d already reached 13 miles. I decided to just say hi, and continue to run south my last mile so I’d be closer to the subway/home.
I STILL FELT GREAT that last mile, so I decided to push it a bit to simulate how my tired legs would feel on race day and get them used to putting in a little push in that last mile. I was running clockwise instead of counterclockwise, so I was also basically running the end of the NYCM route. As I pushed across the south end of the park, I looked out onto Central Park South and remembered that feeling of (exhausted) euphoria hearing the crowds screaming in the last mile of the marathon and ran a nice, strong 9:10 last mile.

For an average of 9:18 over 14 miles! I am so, so happy with this.
The only thing better than an awesome long run?

Running into one of your friends within 10 feet of stopping after she finished her own 10-miler!

Oh, and then her making you breakfast.

Today did not suck, not even a little bit, and I am feeling even more excited about the marathon now. This was the run I needed.