Not What I Had Thought

I woke up early this morning - 4:50am. It is actually pretty close to when I normally wake up, but for a Saturday, this is early. As you know, my goal was to complete my first 15mile run. I left the apartment a bit nervous but very excited. I was going to jump over another hurdle in my training and reach another level. Past the 1/2 Marathon!

I decided to run the route for Summer Streets even though it wasn't officially starting until 7am. I knew the cops would be out already and I wasn't sure what Central Park would be like that early on the weekend. My run was going really well. My legs felt great and my breathing easy. I decided to run an extra mile at the front end so I'd hit 15 since all the literature said that the route was 6.9m one way. I got down to Union Square - felt great! Then, down through Soho, Chinatown, and I look at my watch. How could I be so close to the end of the route already? I can't be running that fast, even without the hills of the park. I turned around at Brooklyn Bridge and headed back up. I knew something was off and asked two people working the route. They both said it was 6.9 one way. Okay, well, I added another mile at the end so if it's off a little I might come close.

I got home, turned on the computer right away and went to MapMyRun.com to see how far off it was. The total run came in at 11.65 miles. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't even make it to 13! I also didn't have time to go back out and run more since we had to be somewhere at 10am. It's difficult to know a goal was not met and a hurdle not cleared, but tomorrow I will go out and do 4 extra miles and next week I'll go 14 instead of the 12 that are in my training plan. Just have to make the best of it and move on. Can't look back. I still had fun on my run and ran a few blocks I had never been on before. Next time I do a route outside of the park, I will use MapMyRun before I leave the apartment! 11.65 miles is still some serious mileage and I still enjoyed my cold glass of chocolate milk when I was mapping out the route!