a soggy 18 miles

sorry it took so long to get this post up. after my run i had to work for the rest of the day...and a bunch of sunday too and so the last place i felt like being was in front of the computer.

i'll take you back to friday night, when i nearly had a temper tantrum. that's all i really wanted to do, actually...i wanted to throw a massive crying fit until i was too tired to do anything but sleep. work was rough last week - high-pressure, quick-turn-around-deadlines, and by 6pm on friday i was done. exhausted. whiny. cranky.

the swede called to discuss the plan for the evening and a simple question about what i wanted to do for dinner elicited this sort of response...

"i don't know cause i'm not even hungry and all i wanna do is sit my butt down on the couch and drink a bottle of red wine but i can't cause i have to run tomorrow and i'm mad cause its gonna rain tomorrow and i don't *wanna* run 18 miles tomorrow in the rain cause i'm exhausted and i just want to sleep all day but i can't cause of this damn running." (pouty face) i eventually calmed down and relaxed a bit. the swede is a smart man and he bought me my favorite cupcakes which definitely helped with the cranky pants.

as expected, Saturday at 8:30 was dreary if not (yet) raining, but at least it was warm - in the high 40's. since we had such a hilly run the previous week, this week would be pretty much flat (well, except for the last bit which is a hill. sigh.) we were heading to coney island., which is a 13-mile round trip. we needed to run a round trip of the boardwalk (2 x 2.5 in case you were wondering how long the boardwalk is, there you have it) to add another 5 for a total distance of 18. we tried to head out quickly, as the downpours were really starting around 1pm. if it started lightening, then we could stop.

while the coney island run is easier from a hill perspective, i've decided that i really don't like long, flat straightaways. libby and i took off with one of our coaches, who was keeping us a more challenging pace than we might have started with - around an 11m mile. i pretty much threw pacing out the window once i got hurt twice this season and decided i would be happy with a race where i felt good at the end.

about 3 miles or so into the run, the rain started - not too heavy but there. we got to the boardwalk and took off to the left - in retrospect we should have gone the other way first since it was longer. oh well. we were now running through misty rain, trying to avoid the many nails and rotten planks sticking up out of the boardwalk. i tripped easily 8 times and snarled under my breath at the though of twisting my ankle on one of the many hazards we ran around.

the boardwalk stretched on forever and ever...or so it seemed. we finally saw the end and when we got there, goo'd it up and had a quick stretch. more mist. we headed back, stopping for a bathroom break, and a few blocks back up ocean parkway at a bodega so i could get some gatorade. and a few more blocks after that...the sky's opened up.

it was raining from every. single. direction. and within a few short minutes we were soaked through to the skin. we shrieked and laughed, and people were staring, giving us looks as if to say "are you guys mad?" we saw a flash and loud rumble of thunder soon followed but how to get back? that was the only flash, and really from where we were on ocean parkway it was quite a walk to the f train, and no busses in sight. we decided we would press on - unless we got too cold and the wind started to blow. rain - fine. wind- n'uh.

for the last 6 or so miles it rained - scratch that - poured on and off. the off parts were worse then the on parts because then you could feel the soggy wetness right down to your bones. it was gross. we got to the park in time for one last soaking (awesome) and found our coaches and the poor bag-watcher had taken refuge in the women's bathroom.

when all was said and done, that was definitely the longest i've run in the rain. i felt a bit like a bad ass. a creeky, stiff, sore, cold bad ass - but a bad ass none-the-less.

saturday's mileage:: 18.0
season mileage to date: 206.5