Just after crossing the finish line

The original plan: I would run Croatan 24 Hour, then, a week later, Wayne and I would do Brooklyn Marathon together. Unfortunately, I had the flu, followed by a week of asthma troubles, prednisone, and reduced running for the past two weeks - and I ended up DNSing at Croatan. Also, Wayne's injury has kept him from running the entire year, and he decided not to run Brooklyn. Sad.

Oh well. I have to run Brooklyn anyway. It's put on by NYC Runs, which does an awesome job with its races. Plus, Steve is much cooler than Mary Wittenberg, and you don't feel like something is scraping the contents of your wallet and giving you hideous t-shirts.

The course is 2 bottom loops of the park, followed by 6 full loops. There are some rolling hills, nothing too terrible but at mile 22, you hate the whole world and it sucks.

The park was gorgeous - lots of nice autumnal leaves. The temperature was unfortunately coldish (high 30s at the start to high 40s at the finish) but it wasn't raining, so that was good. (Tomorrow: 100% chance of rain and 60. I'd rather have cold and dry!)

I knew I wasn't having a PR race, so I wore some extremely ridiculous pants (see photos!), my rainbow tutu, my BRC50k shirt, and some awesome new Runningskirts.com arm warmers (that really kept me pretty warm). Oh, and pink and black glove-mittens. I carried my inhaler the entire time, and only used it six times.

The race had a pretty chill start, and I ended up meeting some nice people (Lisa from CA and Cortney newly relocated to the West Village) and running sub 8s with them for the first six plus miles. I began to struggle on the hill with my asthma and slowed down a bit.

Menachem listened to me complain, and was an awesome pacer

Wayne showed up on the bike next to me! He tossed me Smarties, which I think are a terrible thing to eat. It got tougher as the race went on, for I lost manual dexterity, and the wrappers are a nightmare. (When my coworker Liz joined me, she marveled, "I've never seen anyone eat Smarties while running." Ha, me either. I do not recommend!)

Wayne and I ran chatting and then I ran into Liz! I was so excited and we ran together for maybe 7 miles. It was really nice to catch up with her outside of work, and the pace was still sub-8. Nice.

Beth joined us for a loop, and after I introduced them to each other, Beth said, "So you're an Elizabeth too." Oh, duh, they're both Elizabeths. Ha. We ran together, Beth talking about bars and beers, and the miles slowed down a bit, but not terribly.

Beth dropped off. Menachem hopped on the pain train. We ran up the hill, and then Liz left the park to head to yoga. Bye, Liz. Menachem watched me completely deteriorate, and he was a pretty great pacer. I was mumbling and blubbering and fighting with Smarties wrappers and I met my friend's super-cute bundled up baby, and it was fun, even if I was suffering.

The last lap I perked up. "You seem better," Menachem observed. Yes, because one lap left!!! I still hated the world, and I was freaking out, thinking I'd go over four hours. I really had wanted to, you know, PR or something, but after the past two weeks, asthma and the flu and today sucking with foot pain and asthma and queasiness, I wanted to at least break four hours.

A bit after I finished, no clue what I was doing.

And I did. 3:55:07. I finished and was delighted to be done. NYC Runs loves their runners, so I chowed down on a bagel and cream cheese (real bagels, not day old ones like NYRR provides to their runners), raspberries, grapes, hot cocoa. There were apples and donuts too. My hands were too cold so I couldn't really eat the raspberries and grapes, but tasty addition.

And after? Menachem mentioned vegan food at his house, but I was so cold. I headed home for a long hot shower and then ate a ton of food. The rest of the day was taking care of stuff around the house, a lot of it while sitting in my chair. Yay!