1st weekend of Summer Streets!

Can we thank NYC for summer streets, please? I completely forgot about them until this morning while I was watching the Olympics trying to will myself out the door. That was totally the push I needed to get 9 miles down.

Last year, I only got to participate in the last weekend of the fun. I remember it being a lot less crowded, but it was still a ton of fun. There was so much going on; there was a map and a schedule of things to do. So many free things, too! You could rent rollerblades and bikes for free and some boot camp fitness classes were going on along the side streets. A bunch of companies were out giving samples, I recall Muscle Milk? Somewhere uptown they were giving away free bike helmets. I was .25 seconds away from detouring my run, but felt bad taking one. I don't have a bike and don't plan on buying/ riding one in the near future. I'd only want it to run the rest of the way back with it on because how fun would that have been?! Ok, maybe not. It was a billion degrees. But it would've been fun to walk in the apt with it on and see how long it took B to notice I had one.

They also seemed to have added new sculptures and art along the avenue. Some photos are peppered throughout this post but I had to stop taking pictures of them. They were literally ever block and I was already going really slow. I needed to get this done so I could get back in bed.

My Garmin decided it didn't want to charge last night, so I was SOL on the mile tracking thing this morning. I decided to turn on my Runkeeper App to see what it would say (15 miles! WTF?! There is no possible way), but I roughly guesstimated my distance (and I was right on point! Who's a NYC runner?! This guy.) FYI 10 city blocks- not avenues- are roughly a mile. An avenue is roughly 3 city blocks. I know it's generally 1.5 miles to get to Bethesda Terrace from the apartment. So just start adding miles from 72nd Street. That's a lot of math for this little designer, but it helped pass the time.

I'm really proud of myself for getting through this run. Between consuming too much sugar the night before (I'm a sucker for a slurpee on a hot night) and the brutal heat, my stomach was not having it. I started to feel weird around 34th street so I decided to stop in Duane Reade for a Gatorade and turn around. Even though I know I needed those electrolytes, all the extra damn sugar in it didn't help my problem.

I seriously need Nuun to come in individual packets. . .or I need to find small enough ziplock bags (Anyone know a drug dealer? j/k) to carry one or 2 with me. I like to start with water and incorporate my electrolytes further into my run. And I really don't like hot nuun. It's gross. So is Gatorade, but I'd prefer it if it's hot. So yuck.

Next week, I will be better prepared. It's time to bust out the salt packets again. I think that might have helped me, too.

It was really nice to get out of the park, which was why I was dreading the park so much. I didn't feel like basically doing the same route from last weekend and I was too lazy to get creative- so thank you, NYC, for making it easy on me. I can't wait for next weekend. I need to figure out how to get to th Brooklyn Bridge from my apt and run up the route instead of down.

Sadly, this was my last weekend of waking up across the street from Central Park. Monday will be the start of the moving-in process and at the end of August, there will be no more second apartment on the Upper West Side. Funny, how when I first started running, I wanted to date someone who lived near the park ;) It's going to suck getting up an hour earlier if I have to get to the park for a race again, but so was commuting.

How's your weekend going?