Weekend Wackiness

What a crazy weekend! I feel like I had the best of both worlds but I sure am tired! Friday night I got together with a few of my girlfriends for a pot luck/wine dinner. I made delicious stuffed meatballs with homemade sauce and my plan was to only have a glass or two of wine. Well, that plan was not executed properly! I was having such a good time that one glass turned into about 5 and my goal time of being home by 11 was switched to midnight. How in the world was I gonna get up at 7 to run 15 miles?!?!


The alarm went off at 7am. Ugh... head’s pounding... so sleepy... I made a deal with myself that I would sleep for one more hour and run the 15 by myself instead of meeting up with the Nike Training group. Alarm goes off again at 8... changed it til 9... I finally got out of bed at 915. I definitely felt much better and was able to sleep the headache off. Now all I had to do was run 15 miles in a hotter part of the day. Joy.

This weekend was the first weekend of Summer Streets where they close Park Ave from 72nd to Chambers street. So I figured out a route where I would start in CP up by me, head across 72nd, down to Chambers, back up to 72, back into the Park, then south around the bottom of the park, up the westside, take the 102 transverse and I would have 15 miles under my belt when I hit my starting point at 96th street. Phew, I’m tired even writing that out!

I felt pretty decent for the majority of the run. I was starting to get hot so was pouring water over my head and I had to stop to buy more Gatorade. Once I got back into the park my legs were getting tired. It seems once I run for over 2 hours my lungs feel ok but my legs need to get used to it. But I finished! and promptly sat on the couch drinking chocolate milk as my recovery.

But I couldn’t rest for long.... I had a hair appointment all the way back down in Chinatown and it’s normally a marathon hair appointment. 4 hours later, all highlighted and trimmed up, I headed even further downtown to hang out with some friends on Stone Street. I thought I deserved a beer (well, actually 3) and a cheeseburger. Nice work. I went home semi early because I knew would have to be up by 7 to complete my weekend of wackiness.


7am Sunday... alarm goes off. This time I had to get up, no hitting snooze. I was planning on biking to Glen Rock NJ to visit one of my closest friends and her 9 month old. We were gonna head to their town pool with some friends and I had to be at her house by 1030am. I had a long ride scheduled for Sunday so instead of waking up even earlier to get it done and take public transportation to Jersey I decided to ride there. It’s actually only 25 miles from 168th street. I knew I could do 50 miles with a nice break in between.

I decided to take the subway up to 168th to save time and my leg energy since they were sore from the long run. The ride out to Glen Rock was super nice. It was pretty fun riding on new streets and the route was rolling hills with a couple of climbs here and there. There was one almost 2 mile decent that only had me thinking about the ride home and how I would have to climb back up!

I made it to the house in just over an hour and half. Longer than it should have been but I had to stop to navigate every once in a while and there were lots of traffic lights as I got closer to Glen Rock.

We had an awesome time with the baby at the pool. I really treasure those simple moments with close girlfriends, especially now that I get to see the little one grow up!
 
I was dreading the ride back... it was hot and late afternoon. I almost debated getting dropped off at the train station but I decided to suck it up and ride. I actually didn’t have to stop as often to navigate since I remembered most of the way back. Remember the long decent I wrote about earlier... yeah. It was a killer son of a xxxx to climb back up! I was in my lowest gear and couldn’t keep my cadence up very high at all. There was one part that was so steep that I could barely turn my pedals over! But phew, I made it up. Surprisingly my heart rate didn’t skyrocket. It was definitely high, but not as high as it could have been. My legs were just really, really tired.


So I made it back to NYC and took the train back down to 96th street. I was happy to be home! When I talked to my mom later on that night, she was like, “WHAT?!? you did what today??? You rode your bike to Glen Rock and back?!?!” hehe, it was pretty funny. I guess it was kind of a wacky thing to do, but I got my long bike in, saved money on transportation and I must of gotten some “green earth” points for it! Would I do it again? Sure, if the weather’s good, why not??