Against All Medical Advice

Were I to have solicited any. Which I didn't. I knew full well what my mother and brother would say. "Are you crazy? Do you want your illness to get worse?!"

But I was so frustrated and down about this week, both running and work and social-wise, that I had to make the effort.

At least, that's how I justified the very stupid thing I did this morning to myself.

I was feeling better, though! And I did plan the route so that I could bail at many places.

Left my house about 6:40am with my backpack for work and started to run to GAP. Ran down Union to Court and over the Brooklyn Bridge. Still felt good. Had some water and some Margherita (sp.?) shot blocks.

(Verdict: blocks are nastier than gel because they stick around your mouth longer. Literally. And the Margherita ones are especially nasty. If gus and other sports energy supplements in general are in Aleph-Null, these are in Aleph-One set of nastiness. There is an infinitude of difference in how nasty these are. Saying. )

First bail-out point passed. Crossed over to the West Side Highway and started up towards the numbers. There were some other people in front of me at that point who looked like they were running really slow. I refused to admit that I, too, must have been running pretty slow. Instead, I started passing them.

Second and third bail-out points passed. More water and a block - all I could choke down. Still pretty amped to be out running. I was wearing my Garmin and it had me doing miles between 7:51 and 8:20. More proof positive that I cannot actually keep a steady pace. This is slower than I'm supposed to be running but (a)I couldn't get out of bed for most of the day before and (b) I was wearing a backpack. That's the story I'm selling myself, anyway!

One of the hardest points was passing the turn-off for work. When I do runs up the West Side, or down the West Side, I'm either at work - in which case, I run from Midtown up to Harlem - or I'm running to or from work - in which case, I'm running to or from Midtown. Knowing that I still had a lot more to go and knowing that I could just turn off then made it really tempting to call it a day there. But I kept going.

Ran the flatter West Side Highway route instead of running up to Riverside. Used the watery scenery and the backpack as the reasons to make that decision. I love that it is all connected now! Ran out to 135th and over to 12th, then back down to the cross-over at Midtown and over to work.

I didn't get particularly out of breath during any part of the run. My legs started feeling it at about 13 and my knee wasn't feeling so hot at the end - the slope on the running part is fairly noticeable in the higher numbers and there were a lot of bikes. But I'm happy I did it, especially after this week.

Technology and me do not peacefully co-exist. Prior to the run, I had mapped out what I had thought would be just shy of 20 miles, which had me going to 135th and coming back. Something was wrong with this map - I think I had doubled back on myself once - because the pace I was going and the time that I did the run in, and the re-mapping I did later did not corroborate this.

However, I was wearing my Garmin. And here's where I don't know what to believe. The Garmin had all of my miles - except for two suspect ones - between 7:51 and 8:20, with most between 7:51 and 8:10. Both times I ran under the overpass up to the part in the 70s, however, it was claiming that I was running between 10:30 and 13:40 miles for at least half a mile both times. Now, I know I don't keep a good, steady pace but I hadn't started walking! And these paces were incorporated into my overall pace for the run, which makes me think that the Garmin didn't compute those miles correctly. This is one of the many things that frustrates me about this very expensive piece of equipment!

Who knows. I re-mapped the route on MapMyRun, making sure that I didn't double back on myself. It had the route at 18.72. My Garmin had it at 18.3. So I ran anywhere from 18.3 to 18.7 today, with who-knows-what pace.

I'm now not feeling great but hope I can bounce back for tomorrow's group run. I want to have some company!