July 15, 2006

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York

Distance: “Distance, we don’t need no stinkin’ distance. Run for 2 hours… giddy up!”

Today was a break from the, “ok, go run around the park two or three times.” Today the entire team came to Brooklyn for a practice. Coaches too. Many of the coaches were unaware that a passport was not required for entry into Brooklyn. Ah, go figure.

There must have been 1,000 of us, give or take 900 people.

Before we started the run, Coach Christine Luff, gave a little primer on running and nutrition. The jist of this little talk was, you need to eat if you’re going to run for a long distance. One of the TNT sponsors, Power Bar, donated sacks of “sport gel.” I’ll get to the sports gel in a minute.

Ramon, the head coach, got up and gave us the workout. “Go run for 2 hours,” then he added, “oh, yeah, and when you get to this big giant hill, I’ll be at the top where you’ll turn around, run down the hill, and then run back up.” I thought maybe the trip over from New York, had rattled his brain, but then he repeated his instructions. He was serious.

But then, I was thinking, “Hey! This is my house! (yeah I like to get a little street every now and then) I feel good today Ramon, I’ll run this hill, I’ll run up that hill, I’ll run any freaking hill in the park!” Ok, I didn’t say that out loud, but I thought it.

Now the gel: I’ve never eaten sports gel before. Never really had a reason too, well there was that one time over Memorial Day weekend, when TBS had the Law & Order Marathon, but that was a different kind of marathon. I looked through the bag and it was pretty well sorted out by the time I got there. There were three flavors left: Rasberry Cream, Strawberry/Banana Cream, and one lonely Green Apple. First off, exercise and the word Cream don’t really work in my mind. And Bananas; I can not think of another more vile fruit in the world, blech, eew. I went with the Green Apple.

We were given strict instructions to eat this stuff after one hour of running. Off I went, nice and slow. Ding, one hour! I peel the thing open, and splurt it into my mouth. Ugh. It kind of tasted like green apple, but it was so viscous, that it coated every part of my mouth and throat. One of the women that was running with Aurora and I, looked at me gagging on this stuff, sucking down water, said to Aurora, “What’s he doing?” Aurora replied, “I guess he’s trying to get the taste out of his mouth.” Lesson learned here: it’s not about taste, it’s about fuel. It’s amazing how good a few calories and a little sodium can make you feel. I wasn’t hungry that’s for sure.

Practice was hard today. The heat and the humidity really made it tough, but I ran for two hours solid. I’m a little stiff and sore, but I’ll get over it.

-Jim