Days 12 & 13: Cross training and 12.2 miles

On Friday I had my cross training day.  I was originally going to sign up for a spin package at the local studio, but decided to wait until after vacation for two reasons: 1. We get our rent increase offer (notice I don't call it lease renewal - they always jack up our rent) soon and if we decide to move that would happen the last weekend in September and 2. It is time limited so I don't want to sign up and then not use the classes for two weeks.  That left me with some elliptical for cross training and then taking a citibike ride down to Google on after Chinese class instead of lazily hopping on the subway.  I chipotled it up for Friday night dinner and it was yummy =D  (Yeah I just turned Chipotle into a verb...)

On Saturday morning, I realized that Chipotle is not the best night before long run meal.  Take home message: I will not be eating Chipotle the night before the marathon.  I switched my long run to Saturday this week from Sunday because I figured it was best not to do my long run the day I'm attending an evening wedding.  I really wanted to do the Nike Run Club "Run with Hart" which was a "5k" with Kevin Hart in Prospect Park.  My solution: run to Prostpect Park (~7 miles), run a bit around the park, and then do the 5k.  Part of the solution was also convincing hubby to bring me a change of clothes because I'm a very "swampy" runner.  He was happy to join me in the 5k fun run.  

Before the organized run, but post 8.3 miles :-)

The 5k was a really wonderful experience.  It was completely free, other than needing to create a (free) Nike Run Club account and signing up in advance.  It included free bag check, participation shirt, free pictures, and post race goodies.  It was noncompetitive, but there were pacers (really more like cheerleaders) to encourage us.  

Hubby and I during the run, the only picture I have of me "running" because I refuse to pay for race photos

The run was really amusing because I looked like death (well not really) at the race start since I'd already run 8.3 miles prior to the start.  By mile 1 the "cheerleaders" were saying "you look great, keep it up" probably because they couldn't fathom how someone could be so sweaty and nasty after just one mile :-)  The "5k" was actually 3.9 miles, so I'm glad it wasn't a timed event.  The group run really made me push hard at the finish of my long run, which lets me know that I can actually do "fast finish" long runs physically, but I just need encouragement.

The best feature: fresh towels post run to wipe all of the nasty sweat off of me.

Is that a wonderful post run towel and pop-sickle?  By golly, I think it is.

Also free: hippy juice.

After the organized run, I changed into my post run clothes - which was hard because portapotties in the summer = hell no, and I couldn't find real bathrooms.  So I took off my swampy shirt, put on my fresh shirt, took off swampy bra, and shimmied into a fresh bra behind a tree, but with a guy doing yoga totally watching me.  My swampy shorts were mostly dry and I didn't have a changing in public out of shorts while wearing no panties trick, so I swapped them out before I got a pedicure in the place's bathroom.  I baby wiped myself and headed into Manhattan to do girly shit: eyebrows and a pedicure.  I felt a little bad for the beauty technicians doing the girly stuff to me, but not bad enough to go home and shower first.  I didn't want to add an hour to my day to shower before doing girly stuff.  As always the pedicurist looked at me like I had three heads when she saw the state of my feet and when I told her that I'd like to keep my hard earned foot calluses ;-)

Now I have pretty toes and am ready to party hard at April's wedding tomorrow.

On tap for tomorrow: 5 miles of running and 5 hours of dancing!