18 Miles on a Saturday Morning

Another long run in the books!

Last night, I had a weird wave of nausea both before dinner and in the middle of the night (NOT PREGNANT), and I woke up with my stomach feeling completely uneasy and thought about pushing the run until tomorrow. But I had plans to meet up with Margaret and a Twitter buddy, and I have plans tonight, so I knew that pushing the run off until tomorrow would suck. I told myself to just get out the door and that I could always turn around if I had to.

Not everyone wanted to get out the door.

I ran about half a mile down to Union Square to meet up with Margaret, who was coming from downtown, and we headed west to the West Side Highway. We had a TON to catch up on, and the first 6 or 7 miles flew by. Maybe too quickly? Only one of those was slower than a 9:20, and I was loosely targeting a 9:20-9:45 pace for my run.

I have bags and bags of gels from races and expos, so I’m trying really hard not to buy any right now…so my fueling choices are getting interesting.

Today, I had Chocolate #9. The packaging is about that ridiculous, but it was surprisingly tasty.

We met up with Morty at the Boat Basin, around our mile 5 or so and continued on. It’s always nice to meet a new run buddy, so we killed a good amount of time getting to know each other.

THE WEATHER WAS GORGEOUS. When I started, a few sketchy dudes on the street yelled “AREN’T YOU COLD?” at me in my skirt and tank top, but I was just fine, thank you. It was in the high 50s when we started and probably mid 60s by the time we were done.

Once we got to the little red lighthouse, Margaret asked for a picture. AND WE RAN INTO LETICIA! And who was I to deny my buddy a photo?? We turned around and were at mile 10 already! I was still feeling good, and we were still maintaining a decent pace.

Stop #2 on the Random Gel Train were some Cytomax drops I got at the Zooma Half. They also were fine! Even with my jerk of a stomach!

I was STILL feeling good until we stopped for a second at mile 12ish for Margaret and Morty to grab water. When I started again, my legs were sore and achy and the wheels had totally come off.

Under a bridge at 134th.

Mentally and physically, I was ready to be done. I was tight and sore as all hell but was refusing to give up. The three of us went uphill to Riverside Park, and I cursed Margaret the whole way, since she led us there, so she obviously had put the hills in, too.

We ditched her, and Morty and I headed to the park. MORE HILLS. Owsers. It was around here that Morty told me he was trying to run Wineglass in 3:35, and I tried to let him ditch me, but he wouldn’t. We got to the park at 96th, and finally split up. I ran clockwise, against the Autism race and towards the 103rd Transverse, so I could hopefully meet my Junior League running group. I hit 16ish on the east side of the park, and, again, really wanted to stop. Things were hurting, I hadn’t seen my friends and my pace was dropping.

I remembered here that I ran half a mile before getting satellites, so I only had 1.5 miles to go. I could handle that. I switched my Garmin to the pace screen to focus on keeping my pace below a 10:00 mile, which my legs were dying for. I pulled out a 9:40, and you’d think I was running a 6:00 mile the way my legs felt.

I finished just short of the Boathouse, walked and stretched for a minute or two and began to pace outside. If I sat down, I was never getting up again. Oh! I also saw Beth at this point and trotted over to her to run with her for approximately 10 feet before dying.

I found them, ate eggs and sausage, drank mimosas, laughed, and was a very happy lady.

A great long run, great friends and a mimosa or two go far in making a lovely Saturday morning.

Oh, and 18 miles at a 9:23 pace after a lot of crappy long runs.

How was your Saturday morning?