A Brooklyn-Based Long Run

I guess I ended up taking the weekend off of posting but don't worry, I didn't take off from running. On Saturday I picked up a new pair of shoes (I'll be posting about them soon with some kind of review) so I had to give them a test drive. What was supposed to be an easy 6 turned into an easy 10 just because I was enjoying the sunlight so much. That run also brought me to 67 miles, pretty close to my marathon mileage peak.

Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza

Yesterday was a long run day--20 miles on my schedule. The Dashing Whippets do Sunday long runs in Brooklyn so I decided to head to Kings County for a change of scenery. It was a little bit of a struggle to get out of bed with one less hour of sleep but I managed to eat my bowl of cheerios and drag my butt to the subway. The group met at Grand Army Plaza in front of Prospect Park and boy were there a lot of us, probably 25 in all. Although it was chilly when I left my house, by the time I got to the meeting place it had warmed up considerably and with plenty of sun it was the perfect day for a run.

A good group of folks were looking to do 12 to 20 miles at a 7:45 pace so I went with them. The route we ran was great, taking us through Park Slope to Red Hook then along the water passing through Brooklyn Bridge Park, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, the Navy Yard into Williamsburg. When we got to McCarren Park we turned around and did the New York City Marathon route in reverse which was fun--I realized the course has more hills than I thought.

Throughout the run we lost a person here or there as folks running shorter distances peeled off to catch the subway home. By the time we made it to Lafayette Ave in Clinton Hill we were down to 7 people and by the time we made it back to Prospect Park we were down to 5. Only two of us were looking to do a full twenty so we entered the park and did a loop. I was sore at the end, but I have to say the run went by pretty quickly. All the midweek 15 milers I've been doing seem to be paying off because yesterday I felt fresh until the final couple miles. With Boston exactly 5 weeks from today it's nice to have another quality 20 under my belt and it was even nicer to run it with such a great group of people.