It’s official. I am now as addicted to Twitter as I am to Facebook. This is not good. At least I can automatically send tweets to Facebook, so that saves a little time.
I have not been a heavy Twitter user until now, primarily just exploiting it as a mechanism for automatically alerting any followers to new blog posts. But in the last week or so that I’ve gotten more active, I’ve picked up more followers and a lot more blog traffic, primarily as a result of the Davila race analysis post. For anyone who’s interested, I also started a Twitter list of New York Harriers. Plus it’s another outlet for posting useless funny shit. Like I need that. But it’s something to do during commercials since I never seem to have posession of the Tivo controls. Funny, that.
The Davila post has gotten around 1,000 hits so far and momentum is picking up. I have sent a note to my media contact at NYRR to see if she’ll be running the Mini 10K. I am afraid that, based on some post-race interviews, the answer to that will be “no.” But if it’s yes, then I will plan to interview her about the Boston race. I’ll probably keep the Mini interviews to just two or three people. It’s a lot of work to prepare for them and I think I can do a better job if I focus on just a few runners rather than trying to interview, say, five to seven of them. It’s always a crapshoot, guessing who will be most interesting and forthcoming. But I’ve gotten pretty lucky so far.
I had a fantastic workout on Tuesday morning. Between uncooperative weather, hitting hormonal low points and a fucked up back, I’ve had to rearrange my training a fair amount this week. I had three workouts scheduled for this week: a garden variety 14 mile long run, a session of 1K repeats on the track, and a 10 mile progression run (last mile at HM effort).
Since I knew I had to drop one of them, I opted to dump the track work. Doing 1K repeats will not help me in a half marathon in 11 days as much as doing a 14 miler will, especially if it’s a hard one. So I made the long run a long progression run, running low 9:00s for the first half and 8:30 down to 7:30 for the second half. I am guessing I’ll be running 7:30s next Sunday if I’m lucky. It was hard work, but it was the right effort. Most of all, it was a big confidence booster. I had doubted my ability to run 14 miles at all, so shaky has my endurance seemed lately. Now I know I can easily cover 13.1, and I’m pretty sure I can run hard for that distance if properly rested.
As for the 10 mile progression run still scheduled…well, actually, I have two of them scheduled. One was for today and the other (10 miles with the last 3 at HM effort) is scheduled for Sunday. I am still fatigued today, so I think what I am going to do is drop today’s 10 miler and just run easy, then do the 10 w/3 fast on tomorrow or Saturday and move the final speed session up a day to Tuesday, after which I can get a massage that afternoon. That will give me four days of easy running and rest before the half.
In other news, I decided not to register us for New York. Chances are good that I wouldn’t have gotten in, and, honestly, one reason I’m skipping Chicago is that I can’t deal with megarace crowds. So I’m now 95% certain we’ll be running Syracuse in mid-October. Assuming I start training after the Mini 10K, that gives me 18 weeks to prepare.
Filed under: ny harriers, racing, training |
Races Like a Girl 
It’s easy to get too sucked in to Twitter and Facebook. I try to keep my distance, but I waste more time there than I’d like to admit. (I clicked through to this post from FB, in fact.)
I too decided not to register for NYCM this year. I had the qualifier, but I just didn’t want to deal with the ginormous crowds and all the waiting down at Staten Island again.
Um, saving time by posting to FB via Twitter? Like saving time by combining heroin and methadone in the same syringe.
1000 hits, though, is nothing to sneeze (cutely) at. Way to write!
Sorry about the back and the hormones. Sounds like you’re working around them nicely.
How did you know about that syringe trick?
It’s called DENIAL.
Working around hormones is the story of my life.
Twitter helps me do even less work than I should be doing. #thingsishouldnotadmit
I debated registering for the Syracuse marathon myself, but wanted to do something different instead. Should be a decent course; I used to run around Onondaga Lake quite a bit.
Answer me this: does it get windy around that lake in October? I figure it’s not a disaster if it does, since it’s only part of the run, plus the lollipop course promises equal tailwind for any miles of headwind.
It CAN get a bit windy, but its not a terribly large lake so nothing notable. (And you are too far away from Lake Ontario to have to deal with that.) The stretch along the lake/parkway will be nice and flat, with some rolling hills towards B’ville. Nothing horrible though, should be enough to make it interesting. There are some big hills in the Syracuse area thanks to the fact that the whole area is formed from drumlins, but not the ones in that section of town aren’t too bad for the most part.
On the other hand, the infamous Mountain Goat run in a couple weeks is a bear and they run the half portion of the Syracuse 70.3 over some good hills. The 5k masters championship race though? One of the fastest 5k courses I’ve ever seen. Not that you asked, but I volunteered it. 😉 I’
btw – if you have any syracuse running questions, feel free to direct them my way. i’ve got a history with that town, for better or worse.
Thanks for the info, Angry. I will probably pester you with more questions as October approaches!
I saw a good RT on Twitter this morning:
“Want to make money on Twitter? Go to Account – Properties – Delete account and go to WORK”
There are few people who can make a detailed account of their training schedule or workouts interesting enough to follow, and you are one of them. Some folks write piles of numbers that make me glaze over, but somehow you turn it into an adventure. Congrats on the success of the Davila post.
They are interesting because I load them up with lots of subliminal messages. Have you had a hankering for Yodels lately? Now you know why.
As long as you’re considering a Western New York marathon, try Rochester! It’s flat, somewhat scenic (many miles on a canal), and is run on grounds once dubbed by the Toronto Globe & Mail as “a ferry bad place” (in reference to the now defunct fast ferry between the two cities).
Yay for the Davila post getting lots of traffic! Seriously, you did an amazing job analyzing her race.