Nurse on the Run

This post should probably be titled something along the lines of, "powered by sour patch kids" (it’s official…done and done) or "running friends make everything better," but instead I shall just tell you about my past week.

Flash back to Monday, where my legs were dead.  Fourteen miles on dead legs?  Didn’t happen.  I cut it to seven, called it a day, and switched my schedule back to night shift for three nights.

Since I really don’t want to talk about how work was not fun last week (understatement, for sure), let’s move to Thursday, when that was all over.  This part of the post could definitely be titled, "How NOT to switched from a night schedule to a day schedule," as I ended up sleeping until about 5pm (oops…) and had no idea how I was going to fall back asleep at night, as I had a class at 9am on Friday.  With visions of Benadryl floating through my head, it was actually a delicious Chipotle burrito that someone got me back to sleep by 1:30am.  I’m not sure if there was actually any relation or if I was just that tired, but I’ll take it.  I mean, I did wake up practically every hour throughout the night, but that’s neither here nor there…

After surviving ACLS class (advanced cardiac life support, for those non-medical people out there [also, it's not nearly as impressive as it sounds, it's just CPR + meds, basically]), I decided that my legs needed a test run.  I’d taken three days completely off, and even though they included three twelve hour shifts, you need to jump back into the game sometime.  Plus, I decided to try for twenty miles on Saturday with Meggie, and I wanted to see if that was even a good idea.  So I threw on shorts and a long sleeve shift (newsflash:  still not cold enough for a long sleeve, I was boiling after half a mile!) and headed to Central Park.  One lower loop and back home, just a short run in the park.  My legs felt a little slow, but I think that was more because I was hungry than anything else.  Although only a short run, I felt a little more confident about heading out for a long run on Saturday.

Thursday, October 21
4.17 miles in 33:01, avg pace of 7:55

being grumpy with betsy

Post-run, I had a pizza day with Betsy…we’d been planning for it all week, and we pretty much spent all week emailing each other to see who would be most grumpy come Friday…and who would eat the most pizza.  (I think Betsy won the grumpy contest, and we ate the same amount of pizza.)  Nothing beats Friday night with pizza (thanks, Delizia!) and run/life planning chatter.  Although we didn’t totally solve our problems, we at least were able to vent a bit and fill our bellies.  Thanks, neighbor!

meggie doesn’t know i’m just using her

Earlier last week, Meggie mentioned something about running her final long run on Saturday, and I jumped at the chance to do a long run with someone.  After feeling like a disaster last week, I knew that I would need Sweat Squad motivation to get out there and actually do a long run, and company always makes those long runs go faster.  While I sometimes love totally zoning out on my runs and accomplishing twenty miles by myself, I knew that this week would be different and I would totally benefit from a running buddy.  Also, I knew that running with Meggie would force me to slow down and not run sub-8 minute miles…and to not freak out about it.  Just run with Meggie, run whatever pace we run, and go.  Running fast right now isn’t going to get me anywhere, and I just wanted some mileage under my legs to remind myself that yes, I can run another marathon in two weeks.
Basically, I’m just using Meggie.  I hope she’s okay with that.

So after ingesting a ton of Sour Patch Kids (literally, let’s not discuss how quickly I went through the bag…), I met up with Meggie and Megan  at 59th and 1st to run the last ten miles of the marathon course.  I’m pretty sure tons of other people had this idea, but we took advantage of the cool weather and no need to be anywhere else and met up at 10am.  Sleep in before a long run?  Why yes, I think I will.  Imagining sixteen miles under my legs (okay, not really…that sounds a little miserable), we ran up First Ave and into the Bronx…we got lucky and hit most of the lights properly so there wasn’t tons of starting and stopping, which was nice.  The bridge into the Bronx seemed like it would be a doozy come November 6, but the bridge back into Manhattan didn’t seem so scary.  We made our way back down Fifth Ave and sad goodbye to Megan after about six miles. 

This left Meggie and me to conquer the last fourteen miles of our run.  No problem.  We headed down Fifth Ave, initially commenting that the Fifth Ave hill didn’t seem that bad, only to comment two blocks later that "this isn’t going to be fun at mile 23…"  Let’s not think about that right now.  After looping through the park, we headed over to the west side highway and ran south for bit and cross back over Manhattan at Houston St.  We chatted about marathons, our first running experiences, awkward dates, future life/career plans, and then…Meggie’s knee.  Somewhere around mile 13 her IT band started acting up, so it was touch and go from then on out.  We made the executive decision to tough out the end of the run (plus, the best way to get back to our apartments was to, um, run back…), and we made it back to the NYU area just as our Garmins hit twenty miles.  In other news, we both missed our calling in geographic planning and instead turned to medicine/nursing.  Oops.

Saturday, October 22
20.68 miles in 3:09:08, avg pace of 9:09

Despite Meggie’s bum IT band (get better quick!), the run went along quite smoothly.  Probably one of my slowest long runs to date, but that was the plan and I feel great about it.  On Friday I was worried that I was going to have to bail at some point, but my legs felt good the entire run and twenty miles went by without any issues.  (Well, at least for me.)  I think the rest definitely did my body some good, and I feel better mentally knowing that I covered a long distance between the two marathons.  I’m pretty sure the omelets and potatoes that we devoured post-long run probably helped too.

You know, that whole protein to carb ratio…I think we hit it.

sweat squad REUNION

Even though Meggie and I ate our post-run feat at almost 3pm, we were both ready to eat again at 7pm.  This was especially fabulous since Meggie, Megan, Lindsay, Kelly, and Ali (many of my NYC favorites!) had plans for dinner, ice cream, and marathon chatter on Saturday evening.  Per Kelly’s suggestion, we headed to Pala on the Lower East Side for some of the most delicious pizza I’ve ever had (and I’m not just saying that…), including a butternut squash pizza that was fabulous.  Luckily everyone is having some sort of race freak out, so we all got to air our woes and get suggestions and encouragement from the rest of the group.  Definitely good company.

Best part?  We headed to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for some free ice cream via ScoutMob.  You can’t go wrong with that…I love that runners always have room for dessert. 

Post-ice cream, the group split up a little bit and some headed home while Megan, Lindsay, and I headed over to Brooklyn (crazy, I know) to Hot Bird for Leslie’s birthday celebration.  Megan had blogged about this bar not too long ago, and it sounded awesome!  It’s somewhat of an old automotive garage that was turned into a bar…cool decorations with an outside area that would be awesome in warmer weather.  The beer selection was delicious and the bar definitely had a different feel than most Manhattan bars I’ve been to…and I liked it.  Just saying.  Plus, it meant that I got to hang out with Elyssa for a bit, which is never a bad thing!

And I was still home by about 12:15.  Runners are cool people and I think I like it.

zumba zumba

Just to end the weekend on a good note, I took up Laura‘s offer to join her at Zumba at Athleta’s store on the UES.  My legs did not feel like moving when I woke up on Sunday, but I figured moving would loosen up my legs.  The class was fun despite the fact that I can’t dance to save my life…double apologizes to Laura who stood behind me and had to witness the entire thing.  Although I definitely think that running is a much better workout, Zumba got me sweating and it was fun to dance around for an hour.  Give it a try!

that is all

Thanks for sticking with me if you read the entire thing!  I just want to emphasize how important it is to listen to your body…my body was requesting time off last week, so I listened and gave it what it wanted.  That’s something I should have done immediately post-marathon, but as many runners know (Corey included!), sometimes we don’t listen to our bodies and we do what we want.  Remember that a marathon is a big undertaking and is far from easy on your body, so you need to give it rest and take care of it if you expect it to be kind to you in return.  That being said, it’s taper time again, and I’m looking forward to resting up and getting ready to take on NYC!