Queenswest; or, the Ad-hoc Discovery Run Featuring a Hiccup and Some Tears

{A post hung on the tweets I sent  regarding and during the workout.}

Cold-weather training tip #65: put your gels in a pocket against your body otherwise they will solidify & become v difficult to squeeze out. (10:30 AM) This happened to me last week on my long run with LL. Ironically, this week I had no gels to run with as I’d run out and my shipment from Hammer had not yet arrived, so I was running with a Hammer nutrition bar instead. I really need to sort out the hydration situation as well. I have been carrying disposable water bottles full of half water, half Gatorade but it is really annoying to carry in my hand. I am so over the fuel belt, I hate the way they twist around and bounce. What are my other options for carrying fluids?

Turnsheet for today’s long run. Heading out soon for 17 miles. Slept about 11 hours, yeah! (9:45 AM)

So, today’s schedule called for 17 miles. I got up and plotted an all-Queens course on Gmap-pedometer. I also procrastinated for about an hour, which meant I didn’t begin running until 10:20. I kicked the run off by running over the Queensboro Bridge and back. I enjoyed that except it was pretty windy and I hadn’t entirely warmed up yet so I suffered from the cold a little.  The worst though was that I stopped my watch at the corner of 29th Street and Queens Blvd but forgot to turn it back on–so I lost nearly a mile’s worth of hard Garmin data before I realized to start it again (by then I was halfway up the Queensboro Bridge). So, thanks to that hiccup the first two miles’ stats are all wonky, as is my cum data for the run. Boo TK. Those 4 miles were me just trying to warm up and get a rhythm. It was made more difficult by the water bottle I was carrying, which caused me to alter my arm swing so my form never felt natural.

Once I came off the bridge, I cut north and east along Northern Blvd through Long Island City to get to Vernon Blvd. This is where I started to feel a little emotionally raw.  Clearly I shouldn’t write out turnsheets if I haven’t yet had coffee, because on a couple of the turns I wrote “right” instead of “left” and “street” instead of “ave.”  Getting lost always unsettles me, so I was a bit agitated until I got back on track. Once I was on Vernon Boulevard, though, all the stress and pressure from a long week of work in a politically charged office bubbled over and I had a good ten-minute cry as I pushed my way along the windy street. Is this a girl thing? Or is it just a TK thing? Because I’ve done this before, let the tears fall during a workout. It’s quite a different thing from the tears that come on race day, as those are tied completely to the race, the effort, the training. Am I the only one who gets these outbursts of emotion in the middle of a training run?

Manhattan from Vernon Blvd + 31st st, Queens approx mile 6 of 17. (11:30 AM)

Three weeks ago I was so bored by my route, it was the same old, same old. I am so glad I took the time to plot a course through some new streets this morning. I love Queens, I love its working-class, immigrant roots. I love the dowdy little row houses with their postage stamp yards and wrought iron gates, I love the dangerous thoroughfares, the lack of parking, the microneighborhoods flavored Greek, Romanian, Korean, Latino.  I love its befuddling grid of streets and avenues, randomly interlaced with places and roads — we’ve got 48th Avenue, 48th Street, 48th Place and 48th Road and they cross at diagonals, stop and then mysteriously pick up again three blocks over. I love the purely residential areas pushed to the far north-east and west of Ditmars Blvd. Queens has zero pretension, and when people try and put it on, the rest of us just roll our eyes.

Mile 9. Rikers Island. Queens, nyc. 8 miles left. (12:10 PM)

The sidewalks and roads were mostly clear, though I had to tread gingerly across unshoveled patches of sidewalk at least once nearly every mile. When I safely could, I ran in the bike lane rather than contend with the sidewalks. One thing I don’t love about Queens is how people will park their cars half in the driveway, half over the sidewalk, thus forcing pedestrians and runners to go around. This isn’t such a problem during the first half of the run, but by Mile 10 I was starting to tire and swerving or turning of any sort seemed unduly difficult. It is at this point in the run I began using the term “jackass” for just about every driver on the road.

Astoria Track, mile 12. Unless there’s a big thaw, I’m not doing speedwork here Tues AM. (12:45 PM)

Whenever I run around Astoria Park, I like to pull in and add a loop around the track. That wasn’t going to happen today. There were a couple of guys throwing a football around in the snow; I could see how that would be fun. It’s a gorgeous spot for it, what with the Triboro Bridge stretching overhead. Later, once Husband and I were in the car driving to Pennsylvania, I said to him as we were going across the Triboro, I ran under here twice today. Under the Triboro and the Hell Gate.  That was a cool moment of symmetry. First I was under; now I’m over.

The rest of the run was just the regular home from Astoria Park route, plus a little extra up Skillman Avenue to be sure I hit 17. That was actually a good thing, because by this point I was quite cold, had dumped the water bottle half-full, and just wanted to jet home as quickly as I could. Autopilot! I reflected back on the miles. I really enjoyed the trek up from Northern Blvd to Vernon Blvd, the neighborhood was a great example of that quintessential post-war design of which Queens is chock-full.  Long Island City has a little bit of hipness to it, but really it’s just the ugly stepchild to Williamsburg (which would make it the perfect neighborhood for me). I love every inch of Ditmars Blvd, and I can say that without hesitancy since I ran its entire length today. Running through different neighborhoods always makes me imagine what it would be like to live there, or there, or there. Today my imagination was most captured by the Shore Towers Condominiums. I could totally live here.

Annoyance: energy gels arrive in mail WHILE I am out on my long run, w/no gel. Alas. (3:30 PM)

Finally, after 2 hours and 47 minutes of running I was done. I jogged the final yards up to my apartment building, my legs heavy and tired, panting, sweating yet cold (how does that work??). I ate the remnants of the nutrition bar I’d tucked into my back pocket, and pondered retrieving my keys to get into the building. It seemed a monumental effort. Luckily someone exited at that monent, and I plodded up the stairs to my 2nd floor apartment. Matilda was so happy I was home so she jumped all over me. I pushed her off, I was so tuckered. I went straight to the library and laid on the carpet, panting and stretching my glutes. Matilda is always concerned when we sit on the floor, as in her mind that means we aren’t well. (Humans sit on the furniture, dogs on the floor.) So she came over to me while I was stretching and licked my entire face, giving sweet little whines of worry. She bathed my entire face with her tongue–my eyes, my nose, my ears, my cheeks, even my neck. Eventually I couldn’t stop laughing at her insistence and ticklish tongue. At that point she walked away, surely thinking, “My job here is done.” Ah, doggies! This is why we love them, yes?

17.25 miles in 2:47. Average pace 9:40; fastest mile 9:13; slowest mile 10:37. (This is all approximate because Little G was incompetently handled by yours truly.)