Bathrooms, Please!

Today I had my 16 miler. I must say, it was SO much better than last week's run. After a bad run like that I was sort of unsure about running this week. Especially since my run involved loops. I hate repeating anything, but it especially stinks since I basically run the same route every weekend.

I started out with Bill but then he was too fast for me so he took off right before the bottom of the park (which is where we usually split up). He only had 4 miles today, so he was going to catch the 97th street Traverse back home while I continued the loop. I was happy to see him waiting for me. Especially since I had to pee...really badly. And I wasn't really up to going into any of the park bathrooms without someone waiting outside. (I've seen way too many movies about serial killers). So we looked on the map, and conveniently, there was one right by East Meadow, which was right by where we were.

It was closed.

I had to go really really badly. Bill and I weighed the options. There was another one close by, but on the other side of the park. The trees around us didn't offer much cover and besides, being a girl, it is not all that easy...plus there are tons of cops in the park. I could run across the traverse and go home, but that would mean I had to reconfigure my route, since I was adding some odd-miles on by doing that, and cutting out others. I was about 4 minutes away from the hockey rink, and I was pretty sure they would have an operating bathroom. I said goodbye to Bill and headed uphill. Unfortunately, you had to pay to get beyond the gates of the hockey rink. So plan B...I headed back to my apartment. The running was making it worse and I had like 30 minutes to go.

I did have to reconfigure my run, but luckily I didn't have to run all the way up to 120th like I thought I would have to.

I had a pretty good run after that, though by mile 14 I was pretty exhausted. I was exhausted in the way that I used to be exhausted on my long runs (like "26.2? Are you kidding! That's like 10.2 more miles, there's no way I could do that!").

I ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of a 10:20 mile pace (which is what my watch said), although it could have been a little faster. I don't know because my watch didn't stop on my bathroom and Gu break like it was supposed to :(

I am very tired, so I'm looking forward to a nice night of doing nothing!