28 April 2011

Easter Race

The Holiday Marathons have been making running on holidays fun again.

Two years ago, needing a long training run before the San Francisco 50 Miler, I ran alone Thanksgiving morning, early early, all the way up to Inwood before showering and heading out LI to Thanksgiving dinner. Now...I can head up to Van Cortlandt, have a fun silly low-key run that's volunteer-run with fun little prizes for after & during - like green knit hats for St. Patty's Day, or bunny ears for Easter. People choose as many loops of the 6.65 mile that they want - a loop that has dirt, mud, steep up & downhills, some rolling uphills, and lots of fun.

Wayne and I got there at 8:30 to do a loop (abt 6.65 miles per loop) before the actual race started. He wanted to do 18miles (I wanted to sleep more, but he won. But seriously - I wanted to do the marathon, because if you're not doing the full distance, it seems like you're missing out, but I'm in taper mode, and did over three hours Friday with Pat at Bear Mountain, another three Saturday at Bear Mountain w/ Tony and Wayne - so yeah, the three loops of 19.5+ miles was good w/ me.), but we had to go to Easter dinner so we ran a loop before the race started (which is a race where you time yourself and write your time down in a notebook, so that's totally cool), then chilled w/ our awesome friends (Emmy, Frank, Scott Jurek, NBR...okay so I didn't chill w/ Scott Jurek but he was there, running).

We felt the heat on the first loop. We were both sweating, drinking lots of water. We tried to run w/ the bunny ears, but after they bothered me just on a brief run to the bathroom, we nixed the idea. Some people wore them the entire run, but I guess my head is just shaped the wrong way for them to stay up.

The second loop I started w/ Wayne and Gabriel (who was doing the Easter Marathon as his first marathon!). At the first big hill, I got stuck behind some slow woman and lost them, but that's fine. They're fast. I ran with Pru, who offered to pace me at the Bear Mountain 50 Miler. Sweet!

I came into the aid station, feeling pretty good but hot. Wayne was there with some orange slices, and I headed off this loop with him. He made me run, even the hills. I kept threatening to find a nice slow ultrarunning boyfriend who liked to walk the hills, but he just laughed. But we stuck together and he listened to me blather on.

I let him go when we reached the field. He has a kick, I don't, and my legs felt like utter crap from two days at Bear Mountain. I watched him fly away and I pushed as hard as I could...

And after - stuffed bunny rabbits for the babies in our lives, baby carrots, jellybeans, chocolate bunnies - Easter in full. A great holiday.

And strangest of all, thanks to Wayne not letting me walk the hills, I was the first woman in the 3 loop. Sweet!