Sunday Long Run

As much as I love running in Saddle River Park, I decided that I needed a change of scenery. SRP is pancake flat and with the Prospect Park Track Club 10 mile next week, I decided I needed to work some hills into my run. I met co-worker and fellow running blogger, DailyRunner in Central Park. DR showed me a part of the park I had never seen before, The Bridal Path. It's closest you'll get to trial running in New York City. I have to admit, I felt like I was running the park for the first time. Many of the familiar sights and landmarks looked different from the Bridal Path.

The first 5 or so miles took us north on the west side of the park, across the 102nd St. transverse, south on the east side, around the south end of the park, and back up to Tavern on the Green. I took my first GU pack here with some water. As we approached the 102nd St. Transverse again, DR asked if I wanted to keep going north up Harlem Hill. I said sure, after all wasn't my goal to work hills into the run? At the 10 mile mark, I took another GU pack and focused myself for the last 5 miles. DR didn't bring any water or Gatorade with him so when we hit Columbus Circle, we stopped at a vendor so he could get something to drink. The last few miles took us around the Jackie O reservoir. I have to be honest, in all of the miles I've never run in Central Park, I've never run near the reservoir.

Back to the run....the last few miles were a real grind. My legs were starting to feel heavy and I developed a small side stitch. I fought through it and last we were back at Tavern on the Green. We covered 16.04 miles in 2:17:31 for a 8:35 pace.

Splits and other run details can be found here: 16 in Central Park.

It was a good day. The rest of the week is shaping up like this: tomorrow I usually cross train but I'll be off from work with my daughter so I'm not sure that'll happen. Tuesday I run the Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridge loop, Wednesday is speed night at Paragon, Thursday will be a recovery run.

Blown Away....Well Almost

This morning I met co-worker JS for a run before work. Since I had done speed work the night before I planned on treating this morning's run as a recovery run. I've talked about JS before, he is new to running and is training for the Cherry Blossom 10 mile in D.C. sometime in April. We decided to run our usual 5 mile route, past the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and up the Battery Park Esplanade to Styvestant High School and back again. The winds were gusting every which way this morning. One minute we're running into a headwind and the next we're getting helped along by a tailwind. At one point as we were running in Battery Park, the wind blew the water over the barriers and we got wet. Towards the end of the run, the winds were gusting so hard, they blew me towards the railing that separates the sidewalk from the water. I thought for a minute I was going to get blown into the river. It's a good thing we didn't run on the bridge today, we might have been blown off.

Wednesday Night Speed Session - 2/11/04

We have not been to the 6th St. Track since the first workout back in early January. Yves-Marc, who was subbing for Coach Kate tonight, posted on the RUNNYC Facebook page that tonight's workout would be a repeat of that first session. 3 x 1600m (1 mile) intervals for 2 fastest groups, 3 x 1200 for the next 2 groups, and 3 x 800m for the last 2 groups. The goal was to run each interval within 10 second of each other. Pacer Kevin, who paced me through last week's workout, was pacing the 7:00/mile group. I decided to give that group a try even though it is slightly faster than I'm used to for a 5k. Kevin took us through the first mile at 7:15, the second mile at 7:05, and the third mile at 7:08. He did a great job keeping us on pace made sure the 3 intervals were within 10 seconds of each other.

I left my Garmin at home today and wore my "old school" Timex Ironman watch.
This is the route we took to warm-up and cool down:

We ended up running 6.8 miles in 1:10. That includes warm-up, cool down, 90 second recovery between intervals, and waiting for the lights to change. Thursday I'll run a 5 mile recovery run with co-worker JS then take Friday and Saturday off.

Sunday Long Run

I could not run the Bronx Half Marathon today so I decided to run the distance on my own. My wife had to work today so that meant another 6:30 a.m. start. Out of habit, I grabbed my cold weather gear. Even though they were predicting warm temperatures for today, I was expecting cold temperatures in the morning. Boy was I wrong. I walked out of the house and was greeted by a blast of warm air. I was able to find a long-sleeved tech shirt but for the life of me I couldn't find any shorts so I just kept on my tights.

The run started off well. After a 8:35 warm-up mile, I settled in to what I thought was a good rhythm. The next few miles were between 8:02 and 8:10. At mile 7 I started to feel sluggish. I hadn't been sleeping well the past few days so maybe the lack of sleep was starting to set in. Maybe I was over heated because I was not dressed properly. I had a long-sleeved tech shirt and cold weather tights on and it was well over 50 out. I should have been wearing short sleeves and shorts. I also hadn't run that distance in quite a while. I'm still planning on running the NJ Marathon on May 3 so I needed to started ramping up the miles. I grinded out the remaining 6.5 miles and finished the run in 1:51:46 (8:16/mile). Splits and other details can be found here: 13.5 miles in Saddle River Park.

Lastly, congrats to everyone who finished the Bronx Half Marathon today. The weather could not have been better for a Sunday in February.

Isn't It Cold Out?

That's what people ask me when they see me before or after I've come back from a run in cold temps. Case in point today, I met up with co-worker JS for 5 miles before work. The temperature was 12 degrees, 3 with the wind chill. I treated today's run as a recovery run after last night's intense speed workout. We ran 5 miles in 44:22 (about 8:50/mile). As I was walking to my desk, a bunch of co-workers barked "I hope you didn't run outside today!" I immediately responded "I sure did!"

Personally, I would much rather run in these conditions than 85 degrees and 100% humidity. There is nothing you can do to beat the heat. No matter how much you hydrate, wear light layers, the heat has a way of draining every ounce of energy from you. As long as you dress properly, running in the cold is not so bad.

Wedesday Night Speed Session - 2/4/09

It's been 3 weeks since my last speed session at Paragon. So it was with bated breath that I was anticipating last night's workout. I had a real stressful day at work and I was looking forward to releasing some steam.

Once again, the East 6th track was not runnable so last night's workout took place on the West Side Highway running path. Coach Kate described the workout as a "pyramid" workout. After warming up we ran "pickups" (slightly faster than 5K pace) of 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 minutes with 2 minute (except for the 1 minute pickup where we recovered for 1 minute) recoveries in between. I felt good throughout the entire workout and had no problem keeping up with Coach Kevin. All in all we ran about 7 miles. I had a hard time picking up a Garmin signal so I'm not going to share the details from MotionBased. When we got back to Paragon other runners in the group told me that I kicked ass.

The other highlight of the evening was meeting fellow running blogger, TK from Pigtails Flying. I had no problem picking her out; her trademark pigtails gave her away. We warmed up together and ran in the same pace group. For some reason she struggled with last night's workout. It was great putting a face to the blog. I'm looking forward to running with her at future workouts.

Good start to the month

Thank goodness January 2009 is over. I'm not sure it was obvious from the tone of my blog entries but I was feeling down in the dumps about my running during January. I'm not quite sure why, I was not sick nor was I injured. I'll chalk it up to the snow and ice.

Because of other obligations, I could not run the Gridiron Classic in Central Park today. I needed to start my run no later than 6:30 today and be done around 7:30 - 7:40. I decided to run in Overpeck today. It was still dark when I got there so I started my run on the 1/4 mile track. I did not feel safe running where I could not see the ice. After 2 miles, I moved on to the 1.2 mile walking/jogging path. Even though the end result was good I was feeling off today. I did go to sleep later than I usually do when I need to wake up at 5:00. In the end, I did 8.02 miles in 1:02:37 for a 7:48 pace. Other details can be found here: 8.02 miles in Overpeck.

Now it's on to some good eats at a Super Bowl party. I'm making wings 2 ways, sesame terriyaki and spicy Buffalo style wings (baked, not fried).