grete's great gallop re-cap

okay, so this is more like two weekends in review. let's start with last weekend (october 1 & 2). i ran my second half marathon! yay! the night before was dreary and rainy and my toe (previously broken last year) was really sore. i was feeling iffy about the race, and wasn't sure i even felt like doing it. i went to bed with the thought, hmm, if it rains, i'm not going. however, i woke up and it was beautiful. my toe felt okay and i WANTED to race. i feel like in a way that's maybe why it was so enjoyable. i put no pressure on myself at all. just get out there and see whatcha got. i fueled up with my fav pre-long run bfast. cinnamon raisin bagel and a banana. never fails. i will not shy away from this combo.

 

i headed up to the park with t, and he walked me to my corral. i felt bad asking him to stay and wait for me the whole time, so when the gun went off, he ran home and i got trucking.  the race was "grete's great gallop" in honor of the late grete waitz. it was two loops of central park. i was nervous that the hills would be killer, but it was clockwise (instead of the usual counter clockwise) and so the harlem hills and cat hill were mostly down. WAHOO!  i started the race thinking i would just do it as a training run, but i felt really good the whole time. i even ran mile 11 in 8:21. WHAT? like, i don't do that. 

 

i dont think i was running at 8:21 in that picture though. i also tried out my new kicks. please note the obnoxiously orange shoelaces. yeah, i like orange. but you knew that already. 

 

i kind of love this picture. any way, i ended up PRing this race. i really think it was because i just said "it is what it is" and ran how i wanted to. it was overall an amazing run. besides for when i threw up in my mouth a little at the end. :) 

all and all, it was a great race. however, the next few days were pretty awful, and actually took my training a little bit off schedule. i was SO sore (mostly my IT band), i could barely run for a few days after. i did soul cycle on sunday and it loosened up my muscles a little but monday and tuesday were rough. needless to say, i did not meet my mileage goals this week. whatever, i feel better now. SEE YA.