The Weather is Better in SF, Right?

Tuesday night we ran up and down a long hill at the north end of Central Park, which is one of the less fun parts of the park to run when you're doing a full loop. It's beautiful, but a giant pain in the ass. The last time I ran it, I wasn't in such good shape though, so it was ok. Because of the knee issues, I took it easy and hung out with someone I met at practice recently. Her pace is a little slower than my normal pace, which is good because hills are really rough on your joints and then I also had someone to talk to, which took my mind off the endless circle of up and down.

I talked to one of the coaches about the knee thing and (to my immense relief) she said it was totally normal and I should do icing, as well as cross-training. I've been avoiding working on my legs because squats, etc., tend to make the pain worse. So as soon as I get back to AA, I'm going to take advantage of the free gym use and start using the machines to strengthen everything. I find it so much easier when I can control the amount of weight and stress I'm putting on my joints.

Today was the first time in a while that I got a little nervous about the marathon. My goal was to run as close to 12 miles as I could bear. I ran about 10.4 miles this morning, and although I started off feeling pretty good, I felt like I wanted to crawl by the time I was done. I ate a huge post-run breakfast, drank a ton, took a long nap in the early afternoon, ate more, and I'm still feeling tired and ravenous. It's the kind of hunger that feel like it could be partially thirst. This all sounds normal I guess, but I wasn't feeling nearly this beat after last weekend's run, which was close to the same distance and involved some really awful hills.

My immediate instinct is to get upset, but the following factors are probably the issue:
- I ran almost 5 miles on Thursday night, which is about a mile more than I've been doing on Thursdays (and I haven't been that consistent about running on Thursdays at all).
- I went to bed at 1:30am and got up at 7:00am.
- I had 4 alcoholic drinks last night, which were spread out but still a lot for me considering how little drinking I've been doing and also the dehydration factor.
- I stupidly ate a giant slice of pumpkin cheese pie at about 12:30am while waiting for the F train post-drinks. It seemed like an awesome idea at the time, but cheese is not great on the stomach, especially given the digestive issues that tend to accompany long runs and dehydration.
- There was no way I was getting up early enough this morning to eat and digest something, so my only pre-run caloric consumption was an energy gel and some gatorade.
- It was RIDICULOUSLY humid this morning, and also hot.
- I was wearing cropped pants that have probably a bit too much cotton in them since I hadn't made the time to do laundry in a while and all my more weather-appropriate bottoms were way too disgusting to put on.
- I'm PMSing, which aside from all the hormonal fun also dehydrates me like crazy.
- I was probably a bit too confident at the beginning and should have keep a slower pace to start with - not only would it probably not have affected my overall super slow pace (I was really dragging by the end), but I might have been able to keep it up for longer.

In short, I was a walking/running/crawling demonstration of all the things one should NOT do before trying to run long distance.
I guess I should be thankful that I could still put in some respectable mileage and still do laundry and go play at 5th Ave stores in the same day. I mean really. 2 months ago I couldn't fathom 10.4 miles. I still have 2.5 months until race day. In that time, who knows what I'll accomplish?