(note: this was meant to post yesterday, however due to a crappy internet connection at my apartment, the post was lost and i had to re-write today.)
sorry for the lack of posting this week. it was a less than stellar week for the running, and in general. i'll explain later but i'm not quite ready to address it at the moment.
things looked up with yesterday's run though. we were told we were leaving the park, but we didn't know where we would be off too. we met at prospect at our usual time, and learned we would be running to coney island and back (depending on your mileage). since i had done the 1/2 last weekend, i figured i would do 13 - 14, depending on how i was feeling. 13 would mean turning around at the boardwalk, 14 would be a little longer of a jaunt down the boardwalk to coney island ave.
being highly irresponsible i have still negelcted to get one of those lovely water belts, and instead planned on carrying a poland springs bottle with me. luckily, i ended up running with my friend libby - someone i had met during my first tnt season - and she graciously offered to share the bottles on her fuel belt with me so i was able to ditch the water bottle.
it was a pretty nice day out, despite the breeze. it was one a hot-cold kind of a run, we'd be chilly in the shade and a little warm in the sun. the coaches were having us run to coney to give us a break from the hills of the park - a little recovery run for our joints. the only hills we would encounter would be leaving and entering the park, and the inclines on the overpass to get to ocean parkway, which is completely straight and flat.
it was a good change of scenery, even though the road seems to stretch in front of you forever. i had ridden the route a bunch of times on bike, and had run from coney to the park as part of the brooklyn 1/2 last year, but hadn't done a down and back. chatting with libby made the first half of the run go by pretty quickly, there was good people watching - the theme of the morning seemed to be "adorable children".
when we got to the boardwalk i was instantly wistful for my camera. the stillness of the beach in the winter is really lovely, i think. the coney island boardwalk is never at a loss for characters, even off-season - there were plenty of locals strolling in their winter finery. after we turned around, we made a pitstop in the bathroom which was surprisingly clean, and headed on back.
mentally, the run back is more annoying in a way because the street signs are now facing you and you know you have a long way to go, for example, when you are still on avenue v. (the ave's run alphabetically from coney back up to prospect park.) at avenue p we stopped for a drink, some goo, and checked the turn sheet to see how far we had to go, and we were pleasantly surprised to find it was only 4 miles - we had already gone 10. that perked us up a great deal, and despite being in the lower 1/2 of the alphabet the remaining distance didn't seem quite as daunting.
the last mile or so was a little less than fun. i was definitely tired, but not horribly so. however, the last mile included a long winding hill - my least favorite in all of the park. blech. i think libby put it quite well when she muttered under her breath "good lord". we laughed because we felt a little like old people strugging up the hill. lisa was on bike, and chatted us up the last bit, which was quite a good distraction, and once we hit the top, we were practically there and finished pretty strong.
14 miles done. and i'm feeling pretty good.
yesterday's mileage: 14.0
season mileage to date: 110.8
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