There's A First for Everything

Never ever thought I'd get smacked by hail in the summer. Yet, that's what happened tonight. Thanks to heat and humidity induced grumpiness, my wife and I decided to step out at about 9:45 tonight just as a flash thunder and lightning storm happened on Manhattan. It was a blast. My wife and I like enjoying New York moments, and this was definitely one of them - a stormy, hailing rainstorm for our first night run in Central Park.

When we got back, it was somewhat cooler in the apartment. And thanks to the rain and endorphins, we were much better company for each other.

Raining, Cool....I Went for a Run

Skipped my speed workout tonight but all for the better. Long day at work and short rest the last few days would have made for a bad quality workout (read: lazy). But I needed to get out tonight to run off some pent up negativity and just enjoy the evening, and what a perfect evening it was to enjoy the park. Temperature in the mid-60's and the sky flooding the grounds below, I had a feeling it was going to be a refreshing jog.

And so it was. :-)

Staying Motivated

I know I'm not the first to deal with staying motivated for running. It's unnatural, at least for me, to be so sharply focused every single day. My situation this time is slightly different in that I don't want to go running to get faster. I feel like I've been doing that for a while and have successful results during races (NJ Marathon, Run As One, Queens Biathlon). I just wanted to go running for the pure joy of it.

So I did.

I'm going to enjoy this week as a recovery week and get back on my horse when I feel like it. Work has been taking a little more out of me and forced me to rearrange my schedule. When I find the balance, I'll be back to chasing lower times.

Tonight's workout - 2x Tabata intervals

Tonight's workout was a first for me. I've always done Tabata intervals one set every few days, but tonight I thought I'd try two sets. What a bad idea. The first set of 8 intervals was barely doable. I needed about 10 mins to recover for my next set. Just before the second Tabata set, a group of runners - all girls - came to the Great Lawn 800m lap. I appreciated their supporting applause as I sprinted past them the first time. Right around the finish, they saw me flopping and almost stumbling through my 7th rep. Embarassing. I couldn't hold form any longer so I skipped the last repeat. Needless to say, it was a great workout. Double punishment to make up for my missed workout last night. I'm going to sleep very well tonight.

Goodbye Rest Week, Hello Work Week

The next seven days of marathon training will be ambitious. I'll be stacking up more miles and hope to do another 60+ miles if my body feels up to it. It'll culminate with 8+ miles of the urbanathlon on Saturday, which includes 1/2 mile of stairs to the top of World Trade Center 7, and then an 18 mile NYC marathon tune-up on Sunday. I'll probably add another ~3 miles to that race by running home just to get the mileage past 20 for the day.

So to get this week started, I did an easy 8.25 miles through Central Park. It was another pleasant run around the bridle path and Harlem hill. Besides the 1 mile to the park, I ran mostly trail. It's definitely easier on the body and seemingly more enjoyable than running on the street within the park. I think I'll be doing that more often.

NYRR speed workout and celebrities in Central Park

Last night's NYRR speed workout consisted of a 2m, 1m and 1m intervals. My times were as follows: 12:45 (6:33 & 6:12), 6:26, 5:51. I thought we were going to do another 2m interval so I paced myself for 2m...thus the 6:26 time. I felt a little bad about that, so I did the last interval hard. I was most interested in getting my heart rate into the 190's but managed 189, which shows that I worked pretty hard. Since I've started running, I think I've hit 191 twice. After my warm-up and cool-down, I managed to log just over 11m.

On the way to the workout, I ran into Elliot Spitzer. This was actually the 2nd time I've seen him around the park. He looked to be enjoying some banter with a lady I'm guessing to be his wife. This got me to thinking which celebrities I've seen around the park. Here's my very short list...

Serena Williams
Bobby Flay
Ming Na
Joan Rivers

Weekend training

According to my Garmin 405, I did 22.01m on Saturday around and through Central Park. That brought my totals for last week to 53.34 miles. I looked at my training log last year, and I had three 20+ mile runs. This year, I'm hoping to do 5-6, and complete at least two 60+ mile weeks. I think that should put me in good shape for a 3:15:xx finish.

Now, about the 22m on Saturday, miles 4-8 was a race. I didn't really want to race, but to qualify for next year's marathon, I have to do nine races and volunteer for one race. I had only done four so far this year. Anyways, I wanted to just run at goal pace of about 7:30. I did that for the first mile, but then I got caught up in the spirit of the race. My splits were 7:34, 7:04, 7:12, 6:34 for an avg of about 7:02/mile. I don't like racing combined w/ long training runs because it usually hurts more, but one thing I'm doing this year is to ice my legs after long runs and hard workouts. Seems to be working really well.

The other thing about Saturday was the humidity. I expected to run in driving rain because of tropical storm Gustav. Instead, NYC got the prestorm humidity. Surprisingly, my body help up okay...that is, I didn't cramp up due to excessive sweating. I think it may also have been due to the energy drink I had at around mile nine.

I went to Jamba Juice at 53rd and Broadway sans shirt and looking like I'd just come out of a pool. I stood outside to look at the menu, and the girl at the counter was making a huge waving motion with a huge smile for me to come in. That was very nice of her.

One of my pet peeves about running in NYC...♦

is smoking. I was having a cool-down jog to my apartment, and about a 150 ft. from my apt. door were a couple of guys smoking some weed. When I got past that, some neighbors who were smoking about 25 ft away. I can't do anything about it except to hold my breath, but it just annoys me sometimes when I'm breathing hard and I get a huge intake of second hand smoke of something. That's what I get for training in the heart of the city.

Gripes aside, I decided to do a pace workout around the five mile loop of Central Park. I'm hoping to do a 7:28 pace to come in at about 3:15 to qualify for Boston, and I have to start feeling that pace. In the end, I was overeager and did a 7:06. Here's a link to my workout from my Garmin 405, which is the best recreational GPS device IMHO. But that's another post.