Running Scared with Bridge Runners

Today: 3 miles
Week: 39 miles
Workout: Ran through Chinatown and Bowery

Free face painting! What more could you ask for?

Today: 11.5 miles
Week: 36 miles
Workout: Niketown - C. Park South - Enter park @ Columbus Circle - around top of park - exit 90th St - up Fifth Ave. - around Marcus Garvey Park - turn around at 124th St & Fifth Ave - return to 90th St. - enter park - exit park at Fifth Ave & C. Park South

Hope marathon day is just like today. Cool & sunny. Felt great. Counting down the days. I ran a little extra along Fifth Ave.

Yesterday: 8 miles
Week: 24.5 miles
Workout: 65th & E. Drive in C. Park - lower loop - up W. Drive - around top of park - 102nd & E. Drive - turn around and retrace steps

Nice night for a run. Ran a comfortable pace.

400m Repeats

Wednesday: 5.5 miles
Week: 16.5 miles
Workout: Warm up from Y to 102nd St. Transverse. 6x Repeats across 102nd Transverse with 1 minute recovery

Reservoir

Today: 6.5 miles
Week: 11 miles
Workout: 65th St & E. Drive in Central Park - 85th St - 3 loops of reservoir

Nice, relaxed run. Too humid.

Tempo Run

Today: 4.5 miles
Week: 4.5 miles
Workout: Warm-up from Y - lower loop - 72nd & E. Dr. From there, run to 85th - make left and run along bottom of reservoir until on W. Drive - south through lower loop and ending at 72nd & E. Drive. Cool down back to Y.

I ran around 6:40/mile.

Inwood Hill Park

Today: 6 miles
Week: 37 miles
Workout: Run through Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park

It's amazing what a difference a day makes. I felt stiff and sluggish on yesterday's run, but today, I felt relaxed and fast. I thought about the marathon the entire run.

Last Long Run Before the Marathon

Yesterday: 17 miles
Week: 31 miles
Workout: Niketown - 1st Ave. - 125th - 5th Ave - 90th St - Enter C. Park - clockwise loop of the park - Niketown

I did a little extra running along E. Drive in the park. My legs felt tired today. I was reminded about the hill on 5th Ave. That won't be fun during the marathon. Maybe I was feeling sluggish today because I was suffering a mild case of depression from the Yankees' loss in Game 6 last night.

Friday: 6 miles
Week: 14 miles
Workout: 1 loop of Central Park @46:49

Hill Workout

Yesterday: 5 miles
Week: 8 miles
Workout: Niketown - C. Park's E. Drive - 5x Cat Hill

Felt like I hadn't run in awhile.

Game 5 ALCS

Mariano on the mound.
Yankees finally win 7-2.
Still trail series 3-2.

Game 4 ALCS

View from my seats at Yankee Stadium.
Best seats I've ever had.
Yankees lose again, 10-3

The Rangers' Benjie Molina's go-ahead home run seemed to sail right over my head and barely clear the foul pole. Nooooooooooo!

Fort Tryon Hill

I've never had field level seats at Yankee Stadium before.

Monday: 3 miles
Week: 3 miles
Workout: 1 mile warm up, 3x hill at the back of Fort Tryon Park, 2 mile cool down

This was one of the shortest runs of the year. I was in a rush to get a workout in before heading to the Yankees-Rangers ALCS Game 3. Yankees were shut out 8-0! Damn Cliff Lee!

West Side Hwy

Today: 6.5 miles
Week: 53.5 miles
Workout: YMCA - West Side Hwy - Battery Park

Met Farbod at 59th on the West Side Hwy rec path and ran the last few miles of his 20+ mile run. We were probably doing something close to 7:00/mile for the last couple of miles.

Long Run

Today: 16 miles
Week: 47 miles
Workout: Niketown - 3x Queensboro Bridge - FDR to 96th St - back to Niketown (ran a little extra along FDR)

It was WINDY on the bridge! Felt like I was running in place at times. I hope it's not like that in the marathon. I'm trying to decide how far I should run in the next week. Should I go on another 16 to 18 miler?

Lower Loop

Today: 9 miles
Week: 31 miles
Workout: 5 lower loops of Central Park @7:00/mile.

Total time for the loops was 1 hour. The times for the loops were 12:50, 12:08, 11:50, 11:54, 11:23. The pace felt faster. I guess it seemed more difficult than normal because I was cold and soaking wet for much of the run.

Yesterday: 5.5 miles
Week: 22 miles
Workout: Warm up from YMCA to West Side Hwy - Going south, run hard for 2 min, recovery jog 2 min; run hard 3 min, recovery jog for 3 min, 4 min hard, turn around and head back uptown at 4 min recovery jog, run hard 5 min, recover back to 59th, and run back to Y.

Today: 6 miles
Week: 16.5 miles
Workout: 65th on East Side of C. Park - lower loop - W. Dr. - 72nd St. Transverse - E. Dr. - 102nd St. Transverse - return the same way.

4x4

While trying to wait out the thunderstorm,
I got hit on the head by two chunks of hail, about this size.
Thanks for the picture, Alanna.

Today: 10.5 miles
Week: 10.5 miles
Workout: Lower loop of Central Park + warm up from YMCA to 72nd St Transverse & E. Drive - 4 mile loop @ tempo pace - 4 Cat Hills from the Boat House to the stop light - cool down back to Y

Didn't intend to run as fast as I did, but Farbod kind of pulled me along. Legs are still sore from the 22-miler on Saturday. Ended up doing the 4 miles in 26:43 (6:41/mi). The Cat Hill repeats were done in 1:36, 1:30, 1:26, and 1:22.

We got caught in the thunderstorm. But fortunately, we got back inside before the hail.

Long Run

Saturday: 22 miles
Week: 45.5 miles
Workout: Central Park @65th on east side - one full loop counter clockwise - exit park at 5th Ave & Central Park South - West Side Hwy - south to Staten Island Ferry - up East Side along FDR - 34th - 1st Ave - 57th - back to 34th and again to 57th.

I ran the first 11 miles around 7:30/mile, took a break of about 8-10 minutes, and did the remainder of the run around 8-8:30/mi. Total run was about 2 hours 52 minutes. I felt great for most of the run. I think I could have done the marathon today in 3:20, Boston qualifying.

Half the miles I did this week were done TODAY! I probably shouldn't be running such a big percentage of my miles on ONE day. But it's just the way it worked out this week.

Went to Game 3 of the ALDS tonight! The Yankees Win, the Yankees Win!!! Look out Tampa or Texas, here come the Yankees!

Thursday: 6 miles
Week: 23.5 miles
Workout: Central Park @65th on east side - lower loop - up W. Drive to 105th - return

Today: 6 miles
Week: 17.5 miles
Workout: Full loop of the park @8:00/mile

I'm not sure I can wait 4+ weeks for the NYC marathon!

Yesterday: 4 miles
Week: 11.5 miles
Workout: Central Park - 65th - E. Drive - 102nd - turn around - back to 65th.

Strawberry Fields

Today: 7.5 miles
Week: 7.5 miles
Workout: Central Park's lower loop - jog to Strawberry Fields hill - 12 loops at tempo pace.

Felt great today. Although, my legs were still a little tired from Saturday's half marathon. Got into a nice pace with Bruno and just felt like I was floating along. Splits for each loop: 2:45, 2:47, 2:45, 2:43, 2:41, 2:40, 2:40, 2:38, 2:37, 2:34, 2:28, 2:22. Total time: 31:45. Avg. 2:38.

Treadmill Running Sucks!

Today: 6 miles
Week: 45 miles
Workout: Running in place

I thought it might rain, and I only had the shoes on my feet. I didn't want to wear wet shoes all the way home, so I decided to hop on a treadmill for what seems like only the 5th time in my life. Let me see if I can name some of the things that annoy me about running on a treadmill.

1. I don't get anywhere. If I run, I prefer to get somewhere, even if it's only a quarter mile track, and I'm only getting back to where I started. That's still better than looking at the same wall for an hour! Even a mirror would have been better than the wall I was staring at. At least with a mirror, I could work on my form.

2. I don't know if all treadmills are like this, but the one I was on made me sound like a stampeding elephant. Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! It's not like I'm light on my feet on the roads, but I don't think I sound like I'm trying to punch a hole in the road.

3. I have to concentrate too much on my pace. Usually, when I'm outdoors, I don't worry too much about how fast I'm running. I can speed up or slow down whenever I feel like it. On a treadmill, however, I feel like I might get thrown off the back of the treadmill if I slow down too much. Or, I worry about slamming my face on the control panel if stumble.

4. I don't like the sensation of getting off the treadmill and walking on solid ground. Maybe, it's just me, but I feel like the entire cardio room is flying by me, and I need to grab onto something in order to maintain my balance.

5. It seems to take a lot more effort to run a given pace on a treadmill as it does to run outside. I had the treadmill set at 8:00/mi. It felt like at least 7:30/mi.

I'm sure I could think of a few more annoyances if I had more time.

Grete's Gallop Half Marathon

Today: 14.5 miles
Week: 39 miles
Workout: 1.5 mile warm up, Grete's Gallop Half Marathon, 2+ clockwise loops of Central Park

Great day for a race. I ran my best half marathon in 2 years. 1h 24m 33s (6:27/mile). I tried to go out conservatively for the first loop and definitely had something left in the last 4 or 5 miles.

The West Side Y men's team was 12th out of 41 teams. The women's team was 21st out of 36 teams. The men's team was sitting in 5th place overall in the Open B division, and we might have moved up after today's results are included.

Open B

Mile Splits
1. 6:21
2. 6:30
3. 6:25 (rolling hills on W. Drive)
4. 6:27 (Harlem Hill)
5. 6:35
6. 6:25 (Cat Hill -- going downtown)
7. 6:31
8. 6:31
9. 6:26 (rolling hills on W. Drive)
10. 6:21 (Harlem Hill)
11. 6:36
12. 6:14 (Cat Hill -- going downtown)
13. 6:27

My next planned race is the NYC Marathon.