Time for some Blogorrhea

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's been a long time and I am truly sorry for that. To my 3 dedicated readers (1 in prison), your prayers have been answered for now is the time to get out your comfy chairs, big cups of coffee, reading glasses and yes, read away.

Since I can't even remember specifics about runs/training, I'll give you a quick mileage breakdown of the last few weeks.

4/3: 2 miles ran (treadmill)
4/4: 4 miles ran (hill training in Central Park)
4/7: 12.8 miles ran ( 2+ full loops in Central Park)
4/10: 2 miles ran(treadmill)
4/11: 4.5 miles ran (hill training again)
4/14: 13.1 miles ran (Brooklyn Half-Marathon, yeah baby!)
4/18: 6 miles ran (f' hill training yet again in CP - I hate you, Cat Hill)

The Hill Training has definitely been the least fun, but probably the most beneficial. If you don't know Central Park well, Cat Hill is on the east side right around the mid 70s. It's a long incline with this one real bitch of a climb followed by more little hills. A few weeks back we did this training in the rain when it was 30 degrees out - that was by far my least favorite training ever. It was so bad that about 75% of the team stayed home - slackers!

Ok, on to marathoning biz. So, yes, technically it's not a full marathon, but hey, it still has the word marathon in it - I completed my first Half-Marathon in Brooklyn last Saturday. 13.1 miles of "why am I doing this?" followed by hours of feeling very satisfied along with a sense of accomplishment.

The day started off quite rough - my f' alarm clock going off at 4:45. Yes, you read that right, as in the time I used to get home on a Friday night. Struggled with that for a bit, had some crap breakfast, put on all my sexy gear (see nut hugger pants), put on more Body Glide that probably allowed by law and off it was (still pitch black by the way) to the Road Runners Head Quarters on E. 89th. They had buses set up to take runners all the way to Coney Island, the starting point. Even though I was 3/4 asleep at 5:45, I still could not fail to notice that these buses were of the cheese variety. Yup, public school, kidney buster buses. Oh well, take a nap and forget about it I thought; that was until our driver got lost. How do you get lost when it's your job to get people to a certain place? Me, snotty know-it-all New Yorker had to give this guy directions on how to get to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. There must have been a reason I sat up front I thought. After that snafu, we were on our way - arrival time 7am, 1 hour before start time.

I made a very wise decision at this point to get rid of any excessive fluids (yes, pee) in one of the many gorgeous porta potties. Luckily, I did this at 7 and not 7:30 when the lines were about 30 deep. I met up with the team, bitched about how it was cold and I was tired and after Roxie decided to award me the "whiny" award, it was time to really get ready. To the starting gate.

To say there were a lot of people there is an understatement. I have never run before with that many people. If you have claustrophobia, avoid starting lines. And all of these people, smiling at 8 in the morning, with an ocean breeze cooling your you know whats off right before they were about to put their bodies through an abnormally long run - what the hell is wrong with runners? Are they drinking the Kool Aid - they all must be in some secret cult-like society I have not been made privy to...yet. I digress, 3...2...1... go and we're off, but not really because the real runners are ahead of you and it's gonna be a while before you even get past the staring line (3 minutes to be exact). I lined up with the 9 minute milers as I thought it'd be more fun to pass than to get passed - this def worked, especially once we had some room to breathe. It was 8:03 and I had just started my very first Half Marathon. There would be another hour and fifty-five minutes to come.
To be continued...