We went out for 20 miles today-
Didn't know what the routing was going to be- just told to show up at Queensboro Bridge to start by 630. (I was late thanks to the MTA...smh, but caught my group)
We were told this: run the queensboro, go to roosevelt island and back, and then back to city for the last 10 miles of the actual marathon route.
Um. Sounds easy right? Sure.
Start time: 7:02am
So - we hit the 59th st bridge. Over that. Queens- down some street to another street that leads into another bridge that takes u into Roosevelt Island- down a ton of stairs and AROUND the island.
Sidenote: the beauty of running a hometown marathon, is that u get to discover things that you wouldn't normally. The last time I was in Roosevelt Island was middle school (shout out ps122q Academy!) W a crew of folks I rolled with. My grandfather took me and my bro out for some boss carnival out there and i met my friends. I'm unsure how many of them may read this but Patrick definitely had spaghetti pre rollercoaster and hurled immediately after. Sigh, memories. Lol!
Its changed over the years, but still cute. For those of u that wanna check the island out- F train goes there. U don't have to run ;)
So- around the island, back up the stairs- over the bridge (that's bridge 2, twice) back thru astoria over to the queensboro (that's bridge 1, twice) and into the city--
We were to run UP 1st ave all the way thru harlem to the Bronx. All the way over twd Willis bridge (Bridge 3) over, under and thru the BX for a mile before back into Manhattan on the Madison Ave Bridge (bridge 4).
We crossed the Bronx at 940am. I had no watch, but noticed a big clock.
"Oh and then jus straight down 5th ave. 5 and a half miles" we were told by one of our fellow runners.
Whew, sure!
We felt it by mile 9. Yikes.
Grabbed some gatorade pre the madison ave bridge and kept it moving.
Down 5th ave, museum mile and into Central Park. We had to end at Tavern on the Green and figured just take the loop but with all the people out- gorgeous day, marathon season, everyone in training- we got kinda confused at one point and thought we were lost.
Asking a fellow TFK runner, she was like, oh- u need to go around another loop. Huh!!? After all this?? It didn't sound right so I'm looking thru the park at the buildings to try to identify where we were. One of the beautiful things of knowing ur skyscrapers. I knew the Time Warner building from working over there as well as having trained the large loop for SF08. I knew something was up- we couldn't have been going the wrong way...
We figured it out and kept going around by Central Park South when the same runner came back around: "Sorry guys, I gave u the wrong directions..." *#%*¤@!?? I'd have been TIGHT if we kept going and did an additional loop! Anyway- made it to tavern on the green in one painful piece.
Wrap time: 11:12am.
One of the coaches was telling a group to get some protein in their systems stat- and that chocolate milk would be the best... As if I needed another reason for choco milk:: score! I'd heard similarly in previous training, so I'm not complaining!
Main Coach burst our bubble by telling us the routing is a difficult 18 route- but it felt hard enough. Beautiful day to kick it, but to run that long in 75-83 degrees is not fun. Plus stairs bridges n boroughs- I think we did enough.
Next week, we eat up Greta's Half in Central Park... Who's coming in their "Let's go Team Is" shirts!???
Lol!
communicated via @isBerry!
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