14 miler

So I'm a bit delayed on my posting. Time got away from me. Anyway, our 14 miler was last weekend. We started at 6:30 in at 72nd and 5th, and I arrived at 6:29. (Thank you, MTA, for all of your awesome weekend construction). So I was a little frazzled at the start of our run and it took me longer than usual to get into a rhythm. We ran around the lower loop of the park and exited at 59th street, then ran west to the WSH, all the way down to Castle Clinton, and back up. It was pretty hot, but the miles passed fairly quickly due to the company. We took a detour through the World Financial Center again due to construction on the WSH. Running in A/C is fun! We recharged at the awesome aid stop (thanks, Lynn and Cindy!) and then turned around to head uptown. BTW, peanut m&ms taste really good at 8 in the morning after running 8 miles.

On the way north, we took a little detour along the river. The views and the breeze were gorgeous. It was a perfect morning for a run. We were also still feeling pretty good, plugging along, when up ahead of us, Rotary Dave took a pretty bad fall. He was down on the ground saying that his chest hurt, so BD immediately got on his cell to call an ambulance. While BD was on the phone, Dave said he had fallen on his hand and bruised his chest, so that's why it hurt. We agreed that he would get checked out anyway, just to be on the safe side. A very sweet maintenance man came over and offered us ice for Dave's scrapes. He returned a few minutes later with a huge plastic bag full of ice cubes, probably as big as Dave's head. BD and Florida Dave stayed with Rotary Dave to wait for the ambulance, and the rest of our group kept running northward. We still had 5 or so miles left to go, but I thought we should've been done after all that excitement. (P.S: Rotary Dave is fine, and it turns out that one of our Galloway runners knows a job developer at the Doe Fund who was able to find out the name of the maintenance man who helped us. He was recognized at work. I was so happy to hear that. He really went above and beyond to help us. Small world!)

Anyway, we headed north, up the WSH. Our group dwindled to 3 by the time we hit midtown. Brittany, Nick and I were the last three standing as we ran back through Columbus Circle, around the lower loop of the park and back to 72nd and 5th. By the time we were done, we were all ready to be done. We really thought the route was longer than 14 miles. It certainly felt longer! But we did it. Nice work, Galloway!