Why We're Doing the Goggins Challenge

What it is: the Goggins Challenge entails running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. We are beginning at 8pm EST on June 8.

Why we're doing it: Doesn't matter! While we have your attention, though, we ask that you take one of the actions below every time you visit this post. We will update the bottom of the post with a short summary of each of the 12 runs. Comment if you know something that should be added to the list!

Edit: We finished all the running. Growing into better citizens and allies is ongoing,  so I have updated the list and moved it to its own page. Thanks for tuning in!

Katie and Alisa

Run Updates

Run 1 - 6/8 @ 8pm

Katie - Nice run down to South Ferry. It was a little warm but the weather was perfect otherwise.

Alisa - Very sweaty. Legs fine just a little boring. Jealous of picnicers in the park.

Run 2 - 6/9 @ 12am

Katie - I got to run on my favorite side of the street for the first time since Covid struck! Now it's naptime.

Alisa - Interesting to see midtown empty at midnight. Ran in the middle of Madison. Looking forward to sleep. Glad for the reduced heat.

Run 3 - 6/9 @ 4am

Katie - I always imagined I disliked seeing the sun come up because it meant that I'd have to wake up soon, but watching it come up while already awake was nice. I changed from my Adele t-shirt to my Janelle Monae t-shirt. Now I'm out of concert t-shirts.

Alisa - The temp at 4am is ideal. Beginning of the run hurt weird parts like my neck. Went away. Legs are still okay but run was slower.

Run 4 - 6/9 @ 8am

Alisa - Waking up still sticky from the previous run is gross. First morning run is back to the usual route since traffic is picking up. Super hungry now since didn't eat after any of the night runs.

Katie - I wanted to do something other than my usual out-and-back but didn't plan ahead and that was annoying. I tried doing some laps around a park but I don't think my watch was picking up GPS well, so abandoned that plan for a mini out-and back through East Village.

Run 5 - 6/9 @ 12pm

Alisa - The chafing has begun. Glad I froze a couple bottles in advance, it's getting hot. Taking the pace easy. Who are these other people running at noon??

Katie - It was hot but the activist art I saw was worth it. Phoebe has been an excellent, if occasionally apathetic cheerleader.

Run 6 - 6/9 @ 4pm

Alisa - Had a bike escort to Union Square. Most entertaining run so far. Reunion with Katie and Austin was fun. Brought a frozen water bottle that melted immediately.

Katie - Agree, we had a fun, socially distant reunion in Union Square. I had a running escort from Union Square. Wiped out on the way home. Pride wounded most of all.

Run 7 - 6/9 @ 8pm

Alisa - Rotating sneakers. Taking mini showers after each run to cool down. Ate a ton of noodles for dinner. So rewarding, hope I won't regret it in the morning.

Katie - Also starting to chafe. I didn't plan a route in advance, so I fell back on my old standard out-and-back to South Ferry. Weather was beautiful.

Run 8 - 6/10 @ 12am

Alisa - Construction site jackhammering woke me up as usual. Joke's on them this time. Climbing down stairs hurt for the first time. Ran north on south streets and south on north streets.

Katie - I mapped a route north through the East Village and back south through the West Village but was worried I would forget all the turns so I wrote them on my arm in Sharpie. Unfortunately I wrote them on the inside of my arm and they subsequently smeared on my shirt. Let's chalk it up to post-32 miles brain.

Run 9 - 6/10 @ 4am

Alisa - This night never got cooler. Ran south, weird to see Chelsea so empty. Quads are getting really tight, feels like mile 21 of a marathon.

Katie - I changed back into my Janelle Monae t-shirt thinking it would be cooler since it was dark outside but I was wrong. Had to dig deep for this one.

Run 10 - 6/11 @ 8am

Alisa - Unlocked a new Garmin status: "Overreaching"

Katie - My friend Emily joined me for this one by phone, though she did her 4 miles up in Rye, NY. My route was a mess, but I did manage to get myself over a bridge a couple times and I'm proud of that.

Run 11 - 6/11 @ 12pm

Alisa - The heat's been the hardest part. And the daytime runs on the same route over and over are mentally taxing. Had some GI issues just to keep things interesting.

Katie - I was emboldened my my mini-bridge adventure this morning and decided to run the Brooklyn Bridge. Took me awhile because I stopped in the shade a couple times and to buy Gatorade. After I finished I was sitting drinking the rest of it and a kid gave me a few bagels? It was unexpected but I ate one so can't complain.

(Final) Run 12 - 6/11 @ 4pm

Katie - I was joined (by phone) on this run by my friend Elana. It was hot and eventually I told her to just talk at me because I didn't want to talk anymore. Also now we're finished and I got a margarita to celebrate.

Alisa - Managed to negative split the last 4 miles. Only because some biker was yelling at me. Ending during the day was smart. Have been anticipating the post run protein shake and shower since about run #3.

Brief(ish) Surgery Retrospective

Nearly exactly one year ago, I had surgery to reattach all my hamstring tendons to my butt bone. This is also known as proximal hamstring reattachment surgery. Before I started writing this I was trying to do a little research to refresh my memory, though now that I've done the research, I have a hard time believing this is what actually happened.

I'm pretty sure it did, though. I believe I damaged my hamstring many years ago while doing speedwork on a treadmill. My big mistake was not resting and treating it correctly, so that many years later after a decline in my running and also while playing basketball, my hamstring(s. we have multiple different hamstring muscles!) gave up on everything and separated themselves from where they belonged. This is also what my test results from 1 year ago confirm.

The surgery took place on a Monday, and after that I had to stay home and barely move for two weeks. During quarantine times, this seems like not a big deal, but one year ago it was a huge deal. It was so huge a deal that I bought a Vespa immediately after the two weeks, because that time being immobilized was more than I wanted to endure in the future.

I feel very fortunate that I have recovered well, and am even running better than I have in a couple years. Wednesday was the actual anniversary, but I ran to celebrate it on Thursday. If it wasn't for a bootcamp I started on Monday, I would've been running to celebrate it every single day this week. Alas, life has all kinds of ideas about how we should be living it.

If I had to pick something to say in the year since surgery, it's that I hope you're finding as much joy in your ability to run as I have found in mine, however redeemed it may be.

What a Difference Two Weeks Makes

At the beginning of last week, I was planning to write a whole post about what a great previous training week I'd had. I'm still in what I'd designated as my "base phase" for the year, which is supposed to last through April. My strategy going into the base phase was just to get the miles in, so I didn't have many expectations of it being especially effective. I thought it was just important to get back into the rhythm of running regularly, even if it meant plodding along at 11:30 minutes/mile.

And yet after a little over two months of getting the miles in, I have started to get faster with minimal speedwork. The week before last, I ran 3-4 times and averaged under a 10 minute mile for each of those runs. It seemed like such a dramatic and sudden improvement that I thought maybe there was something wrong with my watch.

Yet as we all are very aware, a global pandemic somewhat dampened my excitement. Originally I had two races scheduled for last weekend, and both were long. Since I'm still feeling hip pain, I didn't run for the whole week so that I could run both as pain-free as possible. Didn't matter though! Both were canceled.

Make no mistake, on the list of tragedies the coronavirus has caused, canceled races are nowhere close to the top. But I think it's important to record this event from all angles, and I would be remiss if I didn't write a bit about how it's impacted running and runners.

There will be plenty more time to muse about that. For now, at least in NYC, we're all relegated to solo runs. For many of us often, running is already a solitary endeavor so maybe it's also the closest thing to normalcy that life has to offer right now.

Aborted Runs and Core Building

I have been trying to work on Phoebe's barking in an effort to be a better dog parent and neighbor. Unfortunately, this means that when I get more than one bark alert (from the Furbo) after I've started a run, I turn around and go back home to make sure there isn't something wrong. In one case, building management started some construction upstairs and it was probably good that I came back home, because it continued ALL DAY. In the other case, though, I was probably just being paranoid. One way or the other, a couple runs have been cut extremely short. I'm confident it's just a big puzzle and I'll keep refining my solution.

My hip has been bothering me during runs. It feels painful at the top of the hip bone, so I consulted Dr. Google, as one does. Consensus of several online forums (and this one Runner's World article) is that it could be related to a weak core. I have decided to try strengthening my core before consulting an actual doctor. Please send along all your helpful core exercises.

Finally, I signed up for the OSR 30 like a chump. It's a competitive race, but I will be lucky to finish it in 7 hours. I applied (again) to do the Empire State Building Run-Up and didn't get in, so figured I needed something else dumb to do. Please send along all your encouragement.

Early February Déjà vu

I'm sure I've written about this before, but when I was around 8 I asked my dad for a pair of Nike Air Max Triax running shoes for Christmas. That was his brand of choice and I guess I thought they might make me like running as much as he did. Boy was I wrong. Running sucked in spite of my fancy shoes.

When I was 12 a treadmill dropped into my life and I began to develop a love/hate relationship with running. To this day, I'm impressed remembering the different treadmill runs I concocted for myself, which I now know were rudimentary interval workouts. During those early years, I started to think of a 10 minute mile average pace as a decent baseline.

I consider 2008 to be the year I decided to start running as an adult, at 21 in my last semester of college. I signed up for a 10k back in the days of folding up a check in a registration form and mailing it away to the race directors. It shouldn't have surprised me that after a few years of no running and eating like a college student, 10 minute miles were way out of my reach. And yet, it did surprise and disappoint me!

But hey, I'd already mailed off my $20 (honestly it was probably less). I accepted the harsh reality of grinding out 5 miles on the treadmill at a 12 minute per mile pace. I did this at Anita Newman Hall, after I finished work at the dining hall around 10pm. It sucked, but I did it for days, weeks, months, because what choice did I have? $20 was on the line.

Somewhere in that mess of late night, post dining hall turtle miles, 12 minutes per mile became easy. I graduated myself to 10 minute miles and never looked back...Until I did. Two-ish years ago, 10 minute miles had become hard again! Back to square one.

ALL THIS to say that I ran some effortless 10 minute miles on the treadmill today, and 10 minute miles haven't felt that good since 2008. Then and now, it was less about achieving a certain pace and more about rediscovering what it's like when running feels good.

First Long Run of 2020

In terms of regularity,  February has been less strong than January, but is starting to pick up a bit. I did my first long(ish) run of 2020 this weekend. It was right around 10 miles in Manhattan and a little in Queens. Pace was a bit under 11 minutes per mile. This is what Garmin had to say about it:

Rude.

I also collided with a slow-moving pigeon and accidentally kicked it into my friend Emily, who also kicked it out of her way before it flew off. I apologize to the universe for my mistreatment of its idiotic child.

One thing I haven't done yet but need to do soon is sign up for the popular 9+1 races I like. Some of them will probably sell out soon if they haven't already. I've already signed up for the NYC Half, Brooklyn Half, and NYC Marathon so that's 3/9. Ideally, I would also like to do the Queens 10K, Bronx 10 Mile, Staten Island Half and I dunno three more I guess. The 18 mile tuneup is convenient training for the marathon, so probably that one.

I'm also mulling over doing an ultra in mid-summer. I have one in mind, but I'm not ready to commit to it here yet even though I'm already excited about it.

Okay, Here's the Plan

I'm trying to stage a comeback, which I know I've said in the past.

This time feels different somehow? Maybe it finally feels easier to let go of having been able to do this much, much better. I'm back to square one, baby. Maybe even farther back because I'm over ten years older than I was the first time around. Scarily, those things matter now.

So I've decided to dedicate the first four months of 2020 to getting out there regardless of pace. So far, I have mostly succeeded. Thoughts still creep in from time to time about not running fast enough, but I can't win 'em all.

Here's the Garmin view of the month. Green is working out (mostly running with one day of riding only). I can live with this for the first month.