My Favorite Run of the Summer

This past weekend was the first weekend Philip and I didn't have guests for awhile and we had made plans to take advantage of Summer Streets, which is where Park Avenue is blocked off from all traffic from 72nd Street all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge from 7am - 1pm on Saturday. So even though Philip and I went out the night before to his work friend's regular evening hang out - Ship of Fools, we still got up early and met my marathon running friend, Susan, at 72nd & Park Avenue at 8:30am. This Saturday was my longest training run - 17 miles and I was so excited that I had people to run with me. The run was awesome. There is nothing like running on Park Avenue with all the tall sky scrapers beside and ahead of you. It felt like I was running the NYC Marathon...I felt special as if it was a privilege to be able to run down Park Avenue which is usually busy with traffic. It was fun seeing all the bicyclists, walkers, roller bladers and runners taking advantage of this special event - that only happened 3 times this summer!

So Philip ran with Susan and I to the Brooklyn Bridge and then he took off since he wasn't going to run 17 miles today. He hasn't even started his official training yet. He will be running the Philadelphia Half-Marathon on November 23rd with me and I'll be running the full-marathon with the goal of qualifying for Boston which is a 3:40 time for my age group. I am going to consider my Women's Nike Marathon in San Francisco on October 19th to be my longest training run for me so that I can stay on track and have my fastest time in Philadelphia. Last year the Philadelphia Marathon had the most Boston Marathon qualifyers and it is known to be one of the fastest and flatest races. The great thing is that Philadelphia is only a 90 minute train or bus ride from NYC so Philip and I can make a short weekend trip out of it and neither of us have been there so it will be a fun to explore Philly for a couple days too. So that's the goal - and I have much more running ahead of me...but I'm really excited about it. :)

Anyways, the run on Saturday was the best. After Philip left us at the Brooklyn Bridge (he rode the subway home) Susan and I continued to run across the bridge and then ran back to 72nd Street and finished by running the 5 mile loop through Central Park. (Photo on right is of the Reservoir Bridge in Central Park.) It ended up being about 3 hours of running, but it was awesome. The weather was perfect, I had great company and we had the coolest route to run. I don't think I could have done it without Susan - she is such a great running partner. And we were done by 11:30am and had the whole weekend ahead of us. And the best part was Philip had made lunch for me when I got home and had our apartment clean and everything. I'm a lucky girl. It was a great way to start off the weekend.