Friends of Westchester Parks has put together a downloadable audio tour of the entire Bronx River Pathway. This is the path I’ve been running on for 10 years…and now I can learn about what I’m looking at every day. Bonus: it’s narrated by Dan Rather! Learn more
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I’m fast approaching the sixth month mark of being on a “2 weeks on, 1 week off” training schedule. This arrangement has worked out remarkably well for me. I’m fresh and peppy for the two hard weeks, but by the time I get to the recovery week I really, really need it.
I had another great week. It’s starting to feel a little creepy. Or foreboding. Or something. Unnatural. I keep waiting for the giant 16 ton Monty Python weight to come crashing down, but it never does.
This week was, like the previous few recovery weeks, marked by insane hunger and terrible insomnia. I have no clue why these issues feature so prominently in what should be a “down” week, but they do. I’d be interested to know if others out in blogland experience these two things during recovery weeks too.
Despite last Sunday’s semi-epic fast finish 22 miler, I felt full of energy on Monday, and my fairly fast recovery pace reflects that.
Tuesday was basically a shortened version of what I did on Sunday — a mid-length general aerobic run with three miles at 6:50 tacked on at the end. This version of the run went a bit better than Sunday’s, as there was less wind to contend with (and seven fewer miles) and I was able to work harder during the last miles. On Sunday, I was just too fatigued to run 6:50 at the end and couldn’t get my legs moving (nor my HR above about 86%). In contrast, on Tuesday I had no trouble meeting (and, in fact, slightly exceeding) the required paces, and the run overall was on the quicker side, averaging 8:14.
Wednesday and Thursday each had two short recovery runs. Unfortunately, the right groin issue (that dates all the way back to late January) has returned, probably as a result of whaling on it Sunday and Tuesday. It’s not bad, though. Just annoying, especially on downhills.
Thursday’s PM run was, as it so often is, the low point of the week. I just felt like shit, especially after attempting strides in the morning. The pace is only as quick as it is (“quick” being a relative term when referring to 10:16 pace) because I wanted to get the run over with.
As usually happens, I recovered overnight and awoke a new woman on Friday morning. Since I seem to run at my best at about 7AM, I hit the track early and pulled another fabulous speed session out of my hat. Despite a steadily increasing wind, I managed to average 3:08s (right on target) for my half mile repeats, doing the second three faster than the first three. I even royally fucked up repeat #3 by pressing the wrong watch buttons. That repeat was somewhat comical, with my hitting “stop” instead of “lap,” then hitting “lap” instead of “start,” then running 200m with the watch off, then stopping and cursing…
Saturday was another down day, with a very high RHR of 56(!) and an exhausted run featuring lots of walking, sitting on benches and stopping to look at ducks.
Today’s run was supposed to be “very easy.” I was instructed to run this in the “low 9:00s,” which I did. Technically. I guess 9:01 average pace is about as low as you can go without running 9:00. I just couldn’t run any slower than this. But since I averaged 71% MHR, I figure that was okay.
This weekend felt like spring for the first time. While I’ve loved the warmer temperatures, the spring flowers and enthusiastic songbirds, the flipside is that everyone comes out on the weekend and clogs the path. I don’t know why morons are so attracted to bike ownership, but the combination of obliviousness and wheeled conveyance makes for some, uh, challenging encounters on the path. That and the dog walkers with 30 ft long leashes (with black cording, no less, so you can’t see them), ready to clothesline the unsuspecting runner.
And today I had my first bonafide smackdown with a male goose. He came charging at me, hissing and tongue-wagging. I couldn’t find a stick in time (my usual defensive move, stick waving). So I threw my arms akimbo, ran straight at the goose and screamed, “Fuck off!” Goose reversed course and scurried away. Unfortunately, there were no witnesses to capture the moment for YouTube posterity.
Coming up in week 14: Another plain vanilla 16 miler on Tuesday, 3 x 1 mile intervals on Friday (whee!) and a reasonably paced 20 miler (8:20ish) on Sunday.
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Last week was a recovery week and then some.
Coming off of two 100 milers, I needed a break. Unfortunately, I got more of a break than I wanted due to our iffy spring weather here on the east coast. More on that in a moment.
The week featured the usual suspects, sprinkled amongst a lot of recover running:
Tuesday’s tempo run actually went better than expected considering how tired my legs still were after Sunday’s “run ‘n’ race” sandwich in Central Park. What was interesting about this run is that while I was running the faster miles at the very end, my legs felt exactly like they do around mile 18-20 of a marathon that isn’t going particularly well (or, I suppose, mile 25 of one that is).
That sensation certainly brought back some unpleasant memories. It also served as a reminder to never, ever, ever run a marathon too fast again. If I’m not ready for a 3:05 in a couple of months, I’ve got to accept that and run within my capabilities.
My legs felt relatively fresh on Thursday and the speed session went as well as it could with a steady wind slowing me for half of each lap around the track. The speedwork not being perfect has begun to bother me less and less. I know that running 800m fast is not my goal, but a stepping stone to the real goal (which is to run around 7:00 for many miles). I’m sweating the races and MPace efforts a lot more than I am the shorter stuff.
On Friday my legs felt like two-by-fours with blocks of concrete for feet: stiff, heavy, dead. The recovery run didn’t help. I skipped the strides since, well, they were out of the question.
Then I ran a little recovery run on Saturday to rest up for…
…the race that didn’t happen on Sunday.
This was very upsetting, as I’d done a modified taper all week, carbo-loaded like crazy, and mentally prepared myself to race a 30K. Not only that, but this was to be the first race that didn’t feature ridiculous hills all season — a totally flat course.
The forecast was bad all week, but I held out hope that the weather would clear. No such luck. We drove to CT in a driving rain, got out and did a 1 mile warmup in pouring rain and steady wind, and gave up. I would have been able to run maybe, at best, a 7:20-7:30 pace in that weather and it would have been miserable. So we turned around and drove home. But not before dropping by the Scarsdale 15K start to see if we could race that instead. By the time we got there (5 minutes before start), we’d debated the merits of racing this one, which were few. It was no substitute for the 30K we’d just bagged.
So we came home and Jonathan took the day off. I got on the treadmill and did a modified MPace run, with three sets of Mpace x 2 miles, with a 1 mile “rest” at 10-20% slower than Mpace. I’m glad I did something on Sunday, since I was ready to run fast, but it was still a huge let down. It’s virtually impossible to find a long and flat race now (too close to marathon season, probably).
Sunday’s events may have been for the best. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. I could have used a solid recovery week and after my treadmill effort I needed a two hour nap, which was unusual.
I’ll try again this Sunday (which is also my birthday), with another sandwich run/race: a 10 mile tuneup race on Long Island (for those running the LI Marathon), which I’ll tack a few miles onto either end of.
Week 11 features 90 miles with more midlength+tempo running, some longer intervals and another footlong sandwich run out on Long Island.
Filed under: central park, racing, recovery, training, westchester | 13 Comments »
The weather people have been threatening us with a winter storm since Friday. My 25K race was moved to next weekend, which necessitated some rearrangement of my running schedule for a good two weeks as a result. I did a hard 17 miler yesterday since the shit weather was predicted to start early this morning.
As of 2:34PM, no snow. So I’m hitting the road for the my second recovery run of the day, given that I’ll likely be spending most of my running time inside this week.
Forecast is still for 6-12″. The question is “When?”
I thought we were out of the woods in terms of snow and ice storms, it being March and all. But, sadly, it seems we’re in for one of the biggest wallops of the season. No wonder NYC was just voted the third worst place to train in America.
Filed under: everyday life, racing, training, westchester | 5 Comments »
Today I ran outside on the actual running path. Not in the street. Not in a race. Just a normal, everday recovery run on a running path. And it was good.
The path is still dotted with some extended stretches of solid ice, so I had to stop and slide robotically over those sections every half mile or so. But with temps forecasted in the mid-50s tomorrow, that should be gone by Thursday.
I ran down to the Bronxville track, which was also more or less clear. I went there to do my assigned six strides, but it was such a relief to run unobstructed that I ended up not only tacking on an extra couple of strides but also doing five miles on the track. Round and round. Didn’t matter. I just enjoyed the air, the wind, the freedom of really running, meaning propelling myself forward rather than having my feet pulled backward and out from under me endlessly, endlessly.
I’ve got a fast finish 12 mile aerobic run tomorrow, which I’m almost certain I’ll do inside since the path is still fairly treacherous. That’s okay, though. I got my fix today and I’m sure I’ll get to do the rest of my runs outside this week.
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I’ll post my usual training week recap eventually, but I had to post about my run through a section of White Plains, NY this morning. WP is hard to describe — it’s a center of commerce in Westchester County and has undergone tremendous commercial development over the past 10-15 years. It consists of a fairly concentrated collection of towering office buildings and shopping malls, wrapped up in a series of wide-lane roadways. The sidewalks aren’t quite as empty as Stamford, CT (which always reminds of the post-apocalyptic Charlton Heston movie from the early 70s, Omega Man), but they aren’t exactly bustling with human activity.
What’s interesting about WP is the residential areas that surround the commercial core. WP abuts Scarsdale, one of the richest communities in the country, yet you know instantly when you’ve crossed the line from Scarsdale into WP. Within a block or two, you go from stately mansions to rundown multifamily dwellings. I took one of the roads I run on, Fisher Avenue, a bit farther north today to extend my run. Once past the train and bus stations, the neighborhood deteriorated quite quickly.
Just half a mile to the north of moneyed Scarsdale were streets filled with stray cats (a family of 12, all brown tabbies), transplanted Central and South Americans on their way to work on Sunday morning and — my favorite — people dressed to the nines and headed into the “French Speaking Baptist Church” (Haitians, maybe?) for Sunday services. Jonathan ran the same way this morning and spotted a restaurant I managed to miss, a (Peruvian-run?) pizza parlor called Machu Pizzu.
I never saw this sort of thing on my runs in Iowa.
Filed under: eating, everyday life, training, westchester | 2 Comments »
Jonathan has come down with a wickedly awful cold. We think he must have touched the wrong door handle at NYRR’s offices when he dashed in to get our bibs and chips on Saturday.
I’ve done more vigorous washing and disinfecting than Meryl Streep in “Silkwood,” but I nevertheless have that vaguely crappy “uh oh” feeling. Fortunately, I have several bottles of the mysterious Gan Mao Ling tablets my sister turned me on to.
Did I mention our entire neighborhood is now covered in a thick sheet of ice? I bought these, which get me down the steps to our ice mobile car without breaking my neck. But I don’t dare attempt to run outside.
This has been the Worst Winter Ever.
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When will this nightmare end?
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Just a little post, since it feels odd not to post something.
Today I am celebrating:
I’ve been stuck inside on the treadmill so far this week. But that’s been fine. It’s a recovery week, so I’ve spent most of those miles zoned out in front of a movie at recovery or easy pace. I did a fast finish easy run on Tuesday that felt a little too easy. This morning I’m doing a longer easy run again with two intervals of 1 mile at 6:40 pace with a 3:00 rest. I’ll see if that feels easy (ha ha).
Sunday is my first real race since the Steamtown Marathon: The Manhattan Half Marathon in Central Park. I had a good race there last year and, weather permitting, I hope to do well again this year. I don’t have time goals yet, and I may even just run this by heart rate.
Either way, I don’t want to waste the opportunity to race all out. I’ll be running three more races in the coming couple of months, but those will be training runs. The next actual race is in late March, a 30K in Connecticut, nine weeks after Sunday’s half. It should be very interesting to compare relative performances between the two.
Filed under: central park, racing, training, westchester | 9 Comments »
Just nine short weeks ago I was 80 pounds overweight, battling high blood pressure, impotence and halitosis — and look at me now!
Okay — none of that is true. But I was certainly not as fit as I am today. I was also a coaching ingenue, a wee runner wet behind the ears, a doe-eyed street urchin in a poorly state and desperately in need of guidance.
This morning I took my resting heart rate and — get out of town! — it was a mere 42. In most hospitals and doctor’s offices in this country, that would indicate a serious medical issue. Couple that with this morning’s blood pressure reading of 103 over 68 and I’d be declared legally dead in most American medical circles.
The last time I had a checkup, around three years ago, I’d just started racing. But after a few years of running, I already had award-winning cholesterol and triglyceride numbers. I’ve decided that I’ll go for another workup in two or three months, when I’ve got more strenuous training under my belt. Just to see how much more of a superwoman I’ve become.
Anyway, on to the week’s report. Like last week, the target was 90 miles, which I was just a bit shy of owing to a long run today that was a half mile short (I had a mild brain fart while figuring out the route en route). I was trapped inside on the treadmill Monday through Friday. It was just too treacherous to try to run outside, and there was no way I’d be able to come close to the speedier times I needed to hit. So I suffered inside.
Things went pretty well overall. I managed 25 minutes at tempo-y pace on Tuesday, although it was a bit slower than I wanted. I think I was still tired from last Sunday’s long run opus. I took all the recovery runs nice and slow so I could put out a good effort on Friday. In contrast to Tuesday, Friday’s speedier bits felt too easy. But I suspect that’s because I was comparing the effort of running at a 7:00ish minute mile for 150 seconds to running at the same speed for 25 long minutes. Since the first few felt so easy, I ran the remaining ones 10-15 seconds faster. Because I am an overachiever.
I took Saturday’s recovery run outside and awoke this morning to more Nightmare in New England weather: yet more snow, coming down like gangbusters this morning. After employing every possible delay tactic, I managed to finally drag myself out the door at close to 10AM. Much later than I wanted to start, but I went to bed at midnight (since The Dark Knight was so freaking — and unnecessarily — long).
I had a bad feeling about the running path, so I drove up to Scarsdale, resigned to the prospect of running my 6ish mile residential loop multiple times. The first couple of miles sucked, frankly, because they hadn’t been plowed. This surprised me, since I was running on a major roadway. I had no traction and was putting out quite a bit of effort for a 9:30 pace. I decided I’d run the whole loop at least once. If it was going to be such arduous going for the whole way, I’d bag the remaining loops and finish up the remaining 14 at home on the treadmill.
Fortunately, other roads were salted and plowed. It was still slushy, icy going, but as the weather warmed up and the salters and plowers did their work, conditions improved, as did my pace. I ended up with 19.5 miles at an average pace of around 8:30, which really is not bad considering the crap I was running in.
It was tiring work, but I enjoyed it. My feet were wet and I was hungry enough to eat the steering wheel by the time I got back to the car, but I’m glad I made the effort to run this one outside. A bonus was running into Jonathan in White Plains as he did his own 16 mile penance today. He gave me a great compliment after we got home. He said he spotted me and thought, “Hey, there’s a real runner out here.” By that he meant I didn’t look like a hobby jogger. I had good form, a runner’s body and I was moving fast. Then he recognized me as the nice woman who provides hot tea and pancakes on Sundays and I can only hope that this was also a bonus for him.
My company on the run consisted of The Mamas & The Papas, Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach and Edvard Grieg’s Greatest Hits (really — that was the name of the album!). I forgot how well produced the TM&TP’s stuff is. Plus it was recorded way back before Auto-Tune started making everyone sound like a singing robot. Singers had to actually be able to sing properly; you know, “carry a tune”?
The Yo-Yo Ma Bach recording (it’s his famous 80s album of unaccompanied pieces) was good for about 20 minutes and then everything started to sound exactly the same, always a danger with anything Baroque. I found myself wondering if anyone ever actually listens to the entire 2-disc set. I moved on to the Romantic period and finished up with Grieg and, man, could that guy write a tune. It was perfect music for a wintry run and I knew I’d made the right choice when I ran by a mansion in Scarsdale with a huge Norwegian flag hanging over the entrance; in the hall of the mountain king, indeed.
Tomorrow kicks off the first week of training proper. It’s not terribly different than what I’ve been doing except now there are actual times/paces attached to the faster workouts. Squee!
Filed under: basebuilding, music, westchester | 5 Comments »
Races Like a Girl 