Tuesday's run was awesome. This was weird to admit considering that the evening before I got an email letting me know our distance was going to be over 7 miles.... SEVEN MILES! I'm sorry, did they not realize that Saturday (during the Brick) was the first time I had ever even hit SIX. What do these people want from me?! So with strong apprehensions I showed up Tuesday morning wondering where exactly I'd either start walking or if there was a way to loop back and cut out some distance. Ironically, for many different reasons, none of our 4 running coaches showed. Riiiiight...
So come 6:30am me and the 8 other girls who actually showed took off. Somewhere before Key Bridge, due to street light timing, the group split off into two even groups. It was the perfect pairing for me. One of the girls running with me was a fair-weather pace partner who always seemed to push me just enough and the other two were "chatty Cathy's" which I love because the more they talk, the more I focus on the discussion and am distracted from pounding the pavement.
Then came the test... Roosevelt Island. The easiest way to cut the 7+ miles run down to a much less intimidating 6+ run would be just to cut out Roosevelt Island all together and run on by. As it turned out, we were a brave crew and opted in. Since none of us were familiar with the area it was more of a figure eight around the island rather than just the perimeter, but none the less we completed it.
At some point over Memorial Bridge, the two groups merged back together and while we ran by the reflecting pool for a couple minutes we all came to silence and you could hear nothing but the chorus of our feet. We were at mile 6 and it was almost meditative. Everyone seemed to be on autopilot and just fueled off of each others presence. It probably was the first time EVER that I can say I truly enjoyed running. Try new things, and you'll always be surprised...
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