Tropical Eats

I did it!

I ran 20 miles and it was seriously the most emotional run of my life (so far).

Spoiler: I cried.

A lot.

—-

Sunday morning, I was out the door by 6:30am.

4 trains and a little over an hour later, I was in Brooklyn!

What is wrong with this picture? The moon is still out.

In Prospect Park, I met up with these sweaty folks:

Tara, Theodora, Tina &  Ben.

The three on the right were speedier than Tara and I, so we only saw each other a few times after that.

The Front Runners New York Blue Line Run was organized exactly like the 17 miles I did two weeks ago with the New York Flyers.

Every 3-4 miles, volunteers had free water, Gatorade and Gu for us set up on top of their car. The route was trickier this time, so bicyclists with orange and blue balloons guided us along the entire way.

They were pretty awesome.

The route was the last 20.2 miles of the marathon:

Going into it, I super worried this route would kind of suck the excitement out of Marathon Day, but decided to do it last minute anyway.

I was so glad I did too!

Without any spectators, having to run on the sidewalk and waiting for a ton of traffic lights, sometimes I totally forgot we were following the marathon route!

—–

The first ten miles in Brooklyn and Queens flew by.

Miles 11 – 14,  we ran up First Avenue dodging early morning couples going to brunch and people walking their tiny alien dogs on the sidewalk.

There are some seriously weird looking dogs up here.

Mile 15 – We crossed our third bridge to the Bronx. My feet really started to hurt at this point. I’ve never gotten a blister on my toe before, but now I can say I have!

Battle wound?

We crossed another bridge and were finally back in Manhattan again. I remember seeing a sign for 138th Street and wanting to cry knowing we had to go all the way down to 59th Street.

Mile 17 – My water bottle was empty and the volunteers were nowhere to be seen. I stopped to buy a $2 water from a street seller and one of the girls in our group bought a pretzel that we all split up and devoured.

I had 2 bites and accidentally dropped the rest of it on the ground.

Fail.

Someone shouted, “Only a 5k to go!”

Great!

I can do that! 3 miles is easy peasy now.

Wrong.

Boy did those three miles suck.

For 1 mile, we went down the 5th Avenue sidewalk, which basically felt like walking on shifting tectonic plates of death.

Plates of death I tell you.

We finally entered the park at 90th Street and followed the loop clockwise to the 59th Street exit.

By that point, our pace group had dwindled down to just 2 of us. The girl I was running with started rolling off a few running mantras that I’d never heard of.

“Run run, fly fly, glide glide” or something like that.

I don’t think mantras work on me. Are they like a magic spell?

She also told me the most brilliant thing ever!

Envision someone accomplishing something great in the fitness world – Michael Phelps winning the gold, a skier using her entire core to grip onto the icy downhill slope, etc.

Awesome! I’ll envision Tim Tebow. I like him.

With visions of Tim Tebow in my head, we exited the park, made a hard right – running directly into some man selling bicycle tours — and entered the final stretch.

Where I Lost It:

When my new running friend said we had just made it to Mile 20 at Columbus Circle and were almost to Mile 20.2, I lost it.

I started hyperventilating, which led to tears, which led to straight up bawling because I had DONE IT.

At that point every single long run, short run, sweaty sports bra, Gu packet, rainy night in Central Park, peanut butter and banana toast, blister, bruised toe, farmer’s tan, horrible weekend alarm clock and the innocent looking Marathon Training Schedule from 26 weeks ago literally flashed before my eyes.

I really can’t explain it.

But boy did I break down.

I told the girl I was running with that I had to stop because I couldn’t catch my breath. I started wheezing (forgot my inhaler) and tried to calm myself down, but couldn’t because I was just SO happy.

This was around 1pm on a Sunday mind you, and there was definitely a constant flow of tourists walking past me giving awkward glances.

Heyyyy, don’t mind me.

I had done it.

—

Finally I got my wheezing under control (happy thoughts, Shannon) and set off for the final .2 miles.

We went up a final hill and saw out of the corner of our eyes, a small group of people jumping up and down cheering for us.

We made it!

And then I cried some more.

And during the entire walk home.

I’m kind of nervous how I’m going to react during the marathon now though! Eeeeek.

Post-run happy time food time was a Pumpkin Iced Coffee, Ham Omelette and a Whole Wheat Everything Bagel.

$8 of amazingness devoured in about 3 minutes.

Oh and this:

No idea if this stuff actually works, but it was tasty.

The rest of the day, I literally laid horizontally for 10 hours straight, iced my knees and watched Felicity reruns on Netflix.

My other favorite kind of marathon.

Taper time!