So today I ventured with 4 other of my Brooklyn teammates up to the GW bridge to run with the Manhattan group. It’s actually quite interesting how we naturally segregate ourselves, Brooklyn vs. Manhattan - I guess what it really comes down to is that we are just running with our friends; Brooklyn obviously rocks.
But at mile 15.5 today Brooklyn and Manhattan were smashed together at warp speed. Brooklyn, Manhattan, TNT, non TNT didn’t matter. I was running with Jinny and Laura, who have been come my running buddies- we run at the same pace, again, a natural evolution. We were half way across the George Washington Bridge, which is very high and very long and we came upon this girl who was hysterical. She was just standing there holding onto the rail wailing, asking if we were with TNT. She was part of the TNT group that was running and she was trying to finish her run just like the rest of us when her legs suddenly cramped up and she couldn’t move. I looked at her legs, they were cramping so badly her knees were hyper-extending. I’m not going to lie, it was scary to see. She ended up being ok; some bikers called 911 and our TNT coaches, we got her on the ground (she sort of fell but didn’t hit her head thankfully) and some salts into her. Ultimately I think it was heat exhaustion that got the better of her. We stayed with her trying to rub the cramps out and getting her to relax and breath until EMS arrived. The other half of what had happened was that her running partner had gone on ahead and left her to finish on her own, she was alone, in the middle of a mile long bridge and scared. Salt is so important when you’re running. Gatorade and Gu’s are super important.
Another thing I learned today is that the pro runners sometimes even take a packet of salt before and sometimes during long runs when it gets so hot out. Very interesting, I might try that sometime.
So that was my good deed, a complete stranger collapsed on me in the middle of the running path of the GW bridge and I caught her. But we’re not strangers are we, even though she was TNT, there were a lot of non-TNTers who stopped to make sure she was ok, offering their Gatorade, Vitamin Water, Gu’s, phones, it was really amazing; running, biking, exercise gives people a common goal and therefore connects us.
Oh yeah…and my mileage is now at 16 miles! And it felt good.
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