I'm back!!

I HAVE PICTURES Y'ALL, because my parents gave me a digital camera that they won in a raffle. However, they aren't heavily interesting. Visuals, though, visuals!

Let's start from the beginning.

I ran yesterday and today, like all of the weekends that I've been running to train for this marathon. However, yesterday's run was a 4 mile race for New York Road Runner's Race for Haiti. It was a fundraiser that the New York City and NYRR decided to do together, and 100% of the proceeds went to Haiti relief. The race alone raised $400,000. Pretty amazing stuff.

Anyway, I usually run 6-8 miles on Saturdays, so I decided to run to the race venue (Central Park) and then run the race. I've only done a half marathon and a full marathon as races (minus the 5ks that I did in Spain when I didn't run at ALL about 5 years ago), and I didn't have the slightest of ideas how to get a good time on such a short race. I knew enough that shorter distance did NOT mean easier run. If you're looking for some kind of time, it's actually a lot harder (in my mind, at least). But, it's for Haiti, I thought, and just ran it.

OMG it was so hard. I can't even tell you how hard. It wasn't hard physically, but mentally difficult. I was just thinking about whether or not I should speed up, about how hard I should hit the hills, and about my pace overall etc etc. Suddenly I saw the 3 mile mark, and I was forced to realize that I had to give 100% and gun it through, without really knowing how much energy I had to give. It was a very confusing race. On long runs, I start out slooooowwllyyy, and my body eventually knows how to get a good pace and last for the entire mileage. That is not the case with these short runs. I finished with a time of 32:01 and 8:00/mile split. I'm not sure if that was the best I could do. I do know, however, that I ran really hard the last mile, which made my ass sore for the rest of the day. Lesson learned. I need to do some serious speed training, i.e. shorter faster runs. (BLEEEGHHHH)

Now, on to today. I just checked, and I did a total of 14.8 miles. Not tooo shabby. I'll show it to you in forms of pictures. (YAYYYY)

************EDIT**************

tragedy.

After I typed that, I looked for the chord to upload all of the pictures, and I cannot find it. Come to think of it, I never saw it

I am so sad. I will report back with pictures as soon as I find it. Let me just say, that it was a fantastic 14.8 mile run, because I fucked around the entire time TAKING PICTURES. GAAAHHH.

I will try to figure something before my last 20 mile run, next week, before the marathon which is ONE MONTH AWAY. (I'm hoping that the caps will distract you from the lack of visuals. SORRY. i'M sO sOrRy. ) (i CaNnOt bE yOuR fRiEnD iF yOu sTiLL tYpE LiKe tHiS.)