another longest run ever!!

SIXTEEN miles today people!! yes, that would be 16. one. six.

i was figuring more like 14 or 15, since we did 13 last week, but...nope! we did 16 whole miles today.

i'm fighting the sickness everyone has and so went to bed pretty early, and set my alarm for 5:45. i made oatmeal, and then went back to bed. weird, yes, but by eating early i can get all the fuel without worrying about getting a tummy ache.

it was 36 degrees out. cold again, but after the leg-warmer run the other day, i knew that i could take it. i was more worried about my upper body - i only have a fleece that's not running appropriate for outer wear. i hoped for the best and headed out.

we met on 72 & riverside and damn, it was *cold*. the park is a mess in preparation for the marathon tomorrow, so we were going to be running down the west side. the minimum distances were going to be:
-1/2 marathoners were going down to chambers and back (9 miles)
-beginners down the west side around the tip of manhattan, up to the south street seaport and back (16 miles)
-intermediates down, around the bottom, up to the williamsburg bridge and back (at least 18 miles)
-advanced down, around the bottom, up to 14th street and back (20 miles?)

i forgot my belt for the goo, but charlotte kindly carried my goo for me. we took off at a good pace and soon it wasn't too cold on my bare legs. i had ditched the fleace and was glad for it. my red sox hat kept my head warm, and i could breathe pretty okay. we were going to go for 14ish but keep an open mind about the 16 in case we were feeling good.

one of the more challenging parts of the run were finding water fountains along the way, because we havent run there very often. i felt like people were looking at me like i was crazy for wearing shorts. once we got down to battery park, we were feeling pretty good so we decided to go for the seaport. it was a good place to grab some water and we were off again. as we came back around the bottom of the island and back onto the westside highway, we saw a crew of what looked like out-of-town marathon runners. i got an appreciative nod which i like to think was saying "i can see you're tough, yes i can." i tried to keep that toughness with me for the last 5 miles.

things were a.o.k for the rest of the run. as usual the last few miles were the toughest, and i'm definitely sore, but no more sore than i was last week. oh and, as a bonus, we were pretty fast. by my math, just shy of 11 minute miles! so cool.

i still can't believe i can run 16 miles when i just started running less than 3 months ago. SIXTEEN. i'll let you imagine the grin on my face for yourself.

today's mileage: 16.0
total mileage: 188.7