Uphill both ways

I'm house-sitting (more like feeding her kitty) for my friend, C, who is on vacation in Jamaica. Though I'm not in an exotic paradise right now, today was spring-like with a high of 58 and loads of sunshine - another great day for a run! And since C's apartment is nowhere near a New York Sports Club, I had to change up my routine, go with the flow, and try a new running route.

I just had a three-mile run scheduled so I did a little research last night to see where I might go.
Along Houston maybe? Meh, kinda boring.
Run up the East River? Ehh, not in the mood.
Hmm, the apartment IS near the Williamsburg Bridge...and I've never I'd never run across a bridge before...why not?

I set out a little after 6am for an easy 3 miles. I'd heard that the bridges are like running hills, but I had no idea just how similar it would be! The incline is slight but it's consistent and when I reached the top of the hill I was soooo happy to be going downhill. You can see from my splits that most of my last mile back was downhill:

(Ignore that first 4-second split...not sure what I did there, but I didn't restart the Garmin after that happened.)

Here's the map:

Running across the bridge was pretty tough, but it was a very nice change of pace. And since I'll be running the NYC marathon in 2011 (once I run in nine races and volunteer at one!) I better get used to it! It's hard because (at least if you go across and turn around like I did) it's literally uphill both ways -- thankfully not in the snow. You go up, come down, turn around and...oh yeah, another hill going up! Fun! At least it ends going downhill...

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for my 7-mile speed interval run on Wednesday (though I might run it tomorrow...). Go to the track? Try to explore Brooklyn? I just don't know... I guess I'll get up early and see how I feel. I have a feeling I'll end up going to the track since it's a speed workout and I'm not so sure about exploring a new place when I should be thinking about my pace and not able to take in a new place. We shall see...

In any case, I'm glad the weather's getting warmer and I can run outdoors more. Hopefully I'll be able to check out Brooklyn one of these days, even if it's not for my 7-mile run.

Well, it's bedtime for me! Good night!