I ran a 6:12 mile and I have Digusting Feet

Disgusting Feet, each word definitely needing a capital letter. Disgusting feet, disgusting Feet, and for sure disgusting feet just doesn't cut it. Disgusting Feet it is.

I didn't really run a 6:12 mile. I mean, I did, supposedly, but I'd be willing to bet a whole lot of money that the mile markers were off. Take a look at these splits. Freaking Hilarious (once again, definite Caps necessity).

mile 1: 7:10
mile 2: 8:40
mile 3: 8:10
mile 4: 7:13
mile 5: 7:51
mile 6: 6:12
mile 7: 6:58
mile 8: 10:42
mile 9: 8:43
mile 10: 9:02

Okay, so I know I was getting tired at the end, but I definitely kicked it the last mile (I was NOT running a 9 min/m), not to mention that mile 9 was up a Huge Hill and mile 10 was mainly downhill. So I really have no idea on how to judge this race performance.

I ended up with 1:20:46 (I was about 5-6 seconds behind the starting line, so I'm expecting the official time to be about 1:20:51), which is an 8:04 pace. I'm definitely happy with it, but I guess I kind of wanted to break 1:20; it would have been cool to have my overall pace be in the 7 minute zone, even if it was 7:59...ya know? (Or is that just weird?) Random Garmin Guy said the race was actually 10.12 miles, which wouldn't surprise me at all considering how uneven the mile markers were (How hard could it be? It's a loop course, for goodness sake...). Regardless though, it still doesn't count as a sub-8 pace in my book.

But, I had a blast, and considering I probably had one (two, three) glasses of wine too many last night, and I ran 7.5 reasonably hard miles yesterday afternoon, I'm very much satisfied with the race.

The race was 3 loops around Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which is not nearly as hilly as Central Park, but has one Long Killer Hill. Running up that the third time was not fun. I had a hard time starting this race; through mile 2 my head was going through convulsions that sounded something like "This sucks. I'm never going to make it 10 miles. I shouldn't have drank that wine last night. I should have eaten breakfast. I can taste the fries from last night. My legs aren't moving. I don't want to run a marathon. I hate this. This is stupid."

And then you know what? I got to the top of the hill, realized for I had been running up a hill and was so busy whining to myself that I didn't even notice, and that's why it felt so hard. So then I laughed at myself, came to terms with the fact that I hadn't done the smartest things in the world to prepare for the race, but I was still going to enjoy being out there.

And I did.

Prospect Park is really pretty, even in the winter, and moreover, I really liked the atmosphere of this race in particular. It was way smaller than the NYRR races, and it just felt homey. There was Tons of Food and free massages afterwards, and I was kind of bummed I couldn't stay and hang out longer. I actually got recognized there! Someone had gotten to my blog from Derek Rose's site, and came up to me. I felt Pretty Damn Cool for a second.

(I couldn't stick around because I had to get to my audition in Manhattan, which went well. I got lost on the way there and almost freaked out, but managed to mostly keep my cool and Phil helped get me on track. I got there later than I wanted, but found a perfect parking spot, managed to trade times with someone who had a later time, and ended up playing way better than I expected. The guy seemed interested, but you can never tell with these things [auditions are Very Weird]. I just have to wait for a month or so, I suppose...)

And so that was my day. I got back to New Brunswick, bought a new mop (because my kitchen floor was Very Gross and my 5 year old mop wasn't much better) and hair dryer, and then got suckered into a scale. I have a body fat percentage of 26%. Is that gross? It sounds gross to me, but I haven't done any research on it. The scale says it's 'normal'. I hate being normal. Hmph.

My feet? Let's just say they haven't done very well with all this racing. (I'm done until the marathon now, by the way...I know it's Time to Taper.)

And so, here's your reward for reading...pics of Disgusting Feet. They're probably not the worst you've ever seen, but they're still Disgusting. Notice the blisters-within-a-blister in the top pic. Then, the toe nail in the second pic was all black inside until I drained a lot of the blood out by sticking a needle through the nail (look closely and you can see the hole on the right side of the nail).

Even though I'm sure I'll be bitching non-stop come sandal season, I have to admit, I'm still kind of Sickly Proud...