hills in jersey make you fast in brooklyn

today the team was kicking off summer streets in the city, but after a bunch of debate i just couldn't bring myself to get up to run with them.

partially, i was just feeling lazy about meeting up with the team...at 7am...in the city. but then friday during the day i felt progressively more sickish. i say sickish because i wasn't all out sniffly or feverish - more so just felt something coming on. i also didn't really want to deal with all the other people/bikes/tourists that would be out for city streets so i made the decision to run in brooklyn, maybe just in the park or some combination of park + run to coney island.

the prerun morning didn't go great. first i had trouble sleeping the night before. then when i got up to choke down my oatmeal at 6:30, i couldn't find the honey, which made the oatmeal experience even more difficult than it usually is. then, i intended to get up at 8 and be out by 8:30. instead i didn't drag myself out of bed until almost 8:30, and for whatever reason the process of getting ready took. me. for. ever. i needed to clean my water bottles. where did i put those new gels. where's my body glide? maybe i should use the ipod...where is it? i don't have any sporty sunscreen, i guess i'll use the neutrogena. etc. etc. etc.

i didn't get out of the house until close to 9:30. luckily for me it was a gorgeous morning so i wasn't going to fry on account of my slowness.

since i really wasn't feeling well i decided for miles in the park - that way if i needed to bail, it would be way easier than trying to do so 1/2 way to coney island. i was extra thankful i had the music to accompany me given the boring nature of the route - not as boring as coney island where the road stretches endlessly in front of you - but still boring for its familiarity. i haven't run with music all season mostly because at practice you're not allowed, and i can't find my little one, and...on some level i do look at it as a bit of a crutch. i guess i think that if you can do those insane miles with no music - then you can use music as a crazy secret weapon when you really really need it.

well, i was feeling needy yesterday so i ran with music the whole time and it was goooood. i was like an addict coming back for a fix and since i hadn't gotten my shit together to make a nice long playlist, was left fussing with the ipod anytime an album would stop because then i HAD to have the music.

i ran a variety of loop combos, ending with a reverse of the shorter run i sometimes run in the morning, which meant i went down the big hill and that was actually killer. when i looked at my watch, i was surprised to find that in just a bit more than the time i usually run in jersey...i ran an extra 2 miles. i would like to think that this says something about how i'm getting faster, but really - it just shows you how damn hilly jersey is. but i was pretty fast - 10.75 minute miles.

if i can maintain that speed for the marathon (not sure that this is possible quite yet), that would be a 281m marathon which is...4 hours and 41 minutes. actually, that's only a 9 minute gain on paris...where i feel like i started waaaaay too fast and was not nearly as well trained. so that should be doable.

i ended my run more sore than i've been in a while, but happy with the run. maybe i'll summer-street it next weekend.

today's mileage: 13.3
time run: 2h23m
season mileage to date: 180.1