Brooklyn Half + The Longest Saturday of My Life

This is the first of two posts today, because one simply cannot do justice for how amazing this past weekend was. In all honesty, it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in the past few years!

Kman, Katy, and I woke up nice and early Saturday morning to head to the starting line of the Brooklyn Half Marathon…my “first” half!

I wore my tried and true VFF’s for the race, because they are the only shoe I’ve ever worn that doesn’t leave me in agony with shin splints. Freaky shoe sandwich picture!

Katy stayed at our apartment the night before in order to avoid waking up at the crack of dawn to get to the race at 6AM. We laid our stuff out the night before and gobbled a nice, filling breakfast before heading out the door in the morning. Almond butter on whole wheat Ezekiel sprouted bread with a banana on the side!

I met up with Katherine before the race since we were in the same starting corral!

And pretty soon we were off! I played it smart, avoided the adrenaline rush which I’ve always heard causes some people to push their pace in the beginning, and enjoyed the first few miles! It took a while for the course to thin out, but once we were out of Prospect Park, things seemed to get a bit better.

Overall, I felt great the whole time! My one goal was to not walk whatsoever, and aside for quickly stopping to drink water at hydration stations, I succeeded. I physically can’t run and drink at the same time! I was pretty psyched with my results for my first half marathon. Just under 10 minute miles! I’ll take it

At the mile 11 water station, I heard “Amy!” and turned around to see my friend Hope! She was running with her friend Tracy, and I joined right up with them. I was so glad to have familiar faces for the last couple miles because the heat was starting to get to me, and then kept a really great pace. The three of us crossed the finish line together!

Cell phone service was horrendous at Coney Island and it took me a while to find Kman, but he finally spotted me wandering around aimlessly.

His whole family came down, which was so wonderful of them! Here are Katy + Gavin, who was a total lifesaver with Gatorades and granola bars after the race.

We all piled in the car to head back to our apartment for a couple quick showers. I think I showered in under 2 minutes because I was so eager to stuff my face with a bagel! Whole wheat everything + jalapeno cheddar cream cheese, ahthankyouverymuch.

Oh, and a coffee the size of my face, of course!

We ate out breakfast while wandering around the Greenmarket at Grand Army plaza, where Kman and I picked up:

• farm fresh eggs
• green lettuce
• Swiss chard
• arugala
• Mesclun mix
• fresh herbed goat cheese
• wheatgrass
• a mixed variety of apples

After Katy + Gavin left, we headed back to our apartment to spend some time with Kman’s parents, his brother Jim, and sister-in-law Katie.

We were both exhausted by the time everyone else left, and were looking forward to a nap, but we continued right on being social butterflies! Our friends Ken, Emilija, and Matt were in Prospect Park at GoogaMooga and asked if they could stop over and check out our new place. We hung around for a while chatting and drinking some beers that they brought over, but we were on a tight schedule!

Next stop: Chelsea, to my friend Sarah’s apartment. It was her birthday, and she was having a little cocktail party. By this time, we were dead tired and politely bowed out of her birthday dinner, opting instead to head home and get some sleep. However, Matt, Ken, and Emilija convinced us to join them for a quick dinner at Bonnie’s Grill http://bonniesgrill.com/ near our apartment, so we made a pitstop there!

I got a turkey burger loaded with every topping imagineable, and had to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep at the table. The glasses of champagne at Sarah’s, combined with the gin punch I had there might have had something to do with that, but I’ll blame it on the race!

Needless to say, both of us absolutely faceplanted into bed when we got home.

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