No Pain, No Gain

Plagued by a stomachache that won't go away, I'm sitting in my kitchen wearing pajamas at 9:30 on a Saturday night. What is wrong with me? For the first time since this morning's long run, I don't feel totally wiped out and have the energy to update you bloggers on a week of tough workouts post-half-marathon, capped off by today's fifteen miler. Maybe it's the fact that fifteen is next in line in increments of five, but I'd been looking forward to hitting this training milestone for quite some time (maybe even more than tackling 13.1). It was not, however, the sensational experence I had been hoping for.

I woke up this morning at 7:00 a.m. aware that we should be expecting a cold one. I didn't quite get how just frigid it was going to feel in Central Park. 13 degrees recorded without factoring in wind chill is not exactly an ideal climate to push one's body in (particularly when said body is still recovering from a race just six days earlier). As soon as I stepped out of my apartment building, my body was stiff, my mind was elsewhere, and my upper abdomen was all kinds of wonky. For the first time in a few weeks, I made it to practice on time via subway (kudos, Scott!), joined up with (a sizably smaller) TNT crew and hit the road with Carey, Dimitry, and Coach Doug. With the help of Carey's Garmin and Doug's knowledge of the park, we veered off from the routine outer loop and messed around on the bridle path and the recreational facilities. I heated up moderately well and was fine with the slower "long run pace" but knew something was slightly awry when Carey told us our mileage...and we still had half the length to go.

Usually on these long runs I am game to pound through the workout and keep going; today I literally could not wait to be finished. Visions of burgers and fries danced around my brain as we finished the tenth mile...and still had a five-mile lower loop to complete. Though Carey, Dimitry, and Doug were great company, I was out of the zone today. After stretching and walking over to the West Side, though, the pain began. While my muscles were mostly fine, my outer extremities were frozen to the point of having no feeling. I grabbed the first available cab and dashed into a diner near my office and sat silently for a good ten minutes while I tried to re-heat. In retrospect, I think the mental feeling of not having "blazed through" a Saturday run exacerbated the physical pain. Regardless, it was a tough one today; it seems my body is still working out its last kinks from the race last weekend.

However, I've done it: I've hit 15 miles and am 11.2 away from race distance. No pain, no gain. It's amazing thinking how far we've come in such a short while. Today while on the eastern stretch in the 90's, a young woman with a backpack spotted Dimitry and Doug's TNT gear and frantically sought to catch up with us believing she was late for the training run for "the marathon." We figured out that she was meeting up with the Summer Season crew for their first practice and sent her in the right direction, reminding me of my first practice in November when a bunch of Fall Season runners whizzed by in the middle of a 15-miler. That distance seemed absurd then, but was a reality today.

All of these workouts - the tough one today, the 6:30 a.m. pre-sunrise speed workout with Dimitry in the snow on Thursday, and the brutal hill training on Tuesday night (let's not even talk about that one) - are in the service of achieving a much greater goal, and I think that's what I love most about this experience. Setting small goals and winning little victories positions the ultimate accomplishment that much more within reach.

So I'm sore and my stomach is still bugging me, but I'm optimistic and ready to go to bed.