Notes
NOTE TO RUNNERS IN BOSTON: THE WATER IS NOT ON YET. I REPEAT, THE WATER SYSTEM IS NOT YET TURNED ON.
Amateur move on my part, I KNEW the water is off from October 31 to May 1, but I braved out an 11 mile run to the river and back without carrying any water anyways. Was it sheer courage? Verging on hopefulness? Or was it just plain dumb, to think the city would turn the water on early because it's so gosh darn warm out?
All of the above. I'll admit it, I pushed through mile 5 of my run along the calm river, the sun glistening hopefully off the surface, the only thing getting me to verge on a pace in the 9's was the thought of water streaming out of the dirty fountain into my parched lips.
As I neared the fountain, my heart sank. I knew there wasn't much hope. There was no one gathered around the fountain as there should be on such a warm day with so many runners out. Then, as I got even closer, I could see there was no hallmark wet spots on the ground from the water splashed out by slurpers gone by. And even closer, the sun was NOT glistening off of a wet fountain tray. Instead, it was bone dry, a soft sandy coating left from the winter where I wanted to find pools of water, beautiful, beautiful water.
I stumbled to a stop, paced around in a circle a few times, pondered asking a random stranger for a swig off their bottle, but I noticed (as I had been watching every single person) no one else had water with them either. I wasn't the only one who had thought or mistakenly hoped the water would be on.
I sucked down my Gu, my mouth getting nice and frothy now and embarked back towards the city. I knew I only had one hope, and that was The Upper Crust Fenway. I knew from experience, they keep pitchers of free water and plastic cups along the windows. I had considered stopping there once before, but never did. This time, I would have to.
I got to the corner, almost got hit by a middle aged woman in an SUV who decided to take the right-on-red without checking to see if there was any pedestrians in the sidewalk (apparently the "Yield to Pedestrians on Turns" sign directly in front of her was not visible enough, nor was I), and slowly jogged my way to the door of Upper Crust, cursing out 40 year old bad driver lady.
I walked in, there were two girls at the register so I went further down, to the pizza-guy-on-cell-phone and I made a hand motion to him like I was drinking a cup of water and made a hopeful, pleading expression on my face. He waved me off, shaking his head "yes" and pointed down to the windows where the water pitchers were. YES!
Water, glorious water, how I've missed you so! I downed not one, not two, not even three, but three and a half glasses of that life-sustaining liquid known as H to the O.
I was able to finish the rest of my run without passing out or dying, and that's always a good thing. And, AND I broke through 10 miles to finish 11 even and, AND I made an amazing pace for the circumstances. 70 degrees. Dehydrated. And I ran under a 10 minute pace. Thank you!