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.

The Oatmeal is My Celebrity Crush

Seriously, though. I love his story and his comics to death. Okay, fine, also I love him because he is funny and attractive. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I discovered a few years ago that he is also an ultramarathoner! A decent one, at that.

Anyway, I didn't intend for this post to be a stalkerish homage to The Oatmeal, even though that's what it's turning into. What I meant to talk about was a couple of comics he's drawn in the past. This is the first one. It's called "The terrible and wonderful reasons why I run long distances." It made the rounds on social media, but definitely read it if you haven't already. I found lots of things in there that I related to, including this:

Image courtesy of The Oatmeal

And this:

And some other stuff. But I don't want to screenshot the whole thing, so I leave it for you to check out. It's probably the most raw, honest and maybe even spiritual take on running that I've ever read. Matthew Inman gets me.

I guess I'll save talking about the other one for another day. That's what inspired this post in the first place.

2012 in 2012: Sandy Relief Challenge - Day 6

Miles to go as of beginning of Monday, 11/12: 323.06

Miles run on Monday, 11/12: 35*

I added the star because the actual number adds up to 35.94, but that seems like a little bit too much, all things considered. And no, it's not a mistake. On Monday, I ran (almost) around the entire perimeter of Manhattan. I know, I know, almost. I had a date at 7 and, after pushing the limits of my anxiety over that, finally peeled off the East River path at about 6:40 (I still ran home, just not along the river) knowing I was already going to be massively late. I therefore ran all the way around Manhattan except for the little part between the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. I'm not sure if I can rightfully claim it as having run around Manhattan, but I'm saying it anyway. I certainly did the distance due to a lot of backtracking. but I suppose it's not entirely true. Here are the maps:

My phone died on the West Side, where this path stops. But about 10 blocks later (which I'm not even counting in the total) I met up with Amortya, who had his phone and therefore had data (which he was kind enough to let me use) for the next 8.74 miles:

Amortya finished this segment well before I did, so I imagine my pace was slightly slower than 11 minutes per mile. I felt bad for Morty because, by that point, I was not in tip-top shape and had slowed down significantly over the course of the whole things. We parted at 14th street, at which point I knew I'd be able to remember my route well enough to map it manually on MapMyRun. So here's that part:

Yes, my navigation skills were sloppy and there were parts of the run (up after Dyckman Park) where I wasn't quite at water's edge. But I think I was at least 92% successful in this venture. It should be noted that this was inspired by a run and subsequent blog post done by Robert Reese. You can find that summary here.

I didn't walk, but there were definitely points when I had to stop and assess which direction/path to take next. I also stopped a number of times to take pictures!

The Williamsburg Bridge, about a mile from my starting point

An overlook point around 81st street and the East River

Around the 160's on the East

Slightly further north (maybe not quite 170's)

Betcha didn't know there's a boathouse up there

More boathouse

I had no idea, but Columbia's fields are way up there!

The most north point on Manhattan

Sweet Jesus, come get me!

And that's when I started being concerned about not having enough power left to coordinate with Amortya so I quit with the pictures. As I mentioned before, I had to backtrack some because many parts of the path were closed due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. It was disheartening at times, but I guess I still made my way around so it wasn't terrible.

So that's a pretty great way to get my mile numbers up. And oh, hey! Here's the link for my fundraiser. Less than $500 to goal!

http://www.crowdrise.com/2012in2012forSandyRelief/

Miles to go as of beginning of Tuesday, 11/13: 287.12

No Knickerbocker in 2011

Sad face. For the last two years I've done the Knickerbocker 60k, which takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving. In case you were wondering, the race course includes nine 4-mile loops around Central Park. It's a little grueling but something I've enjoyed incorporating into my holiday traditions over the last couple of years. Plus, it allows me to not give a crap about all the crap I eat on Thanksgiving Day.

But I don't want to give up on the idea of a pre-holiday ultramarathon altogether. Instead, I think I'll search for a good 50k (I'd say 60k but I feel that the distance is a little less common) to do before Christmas. I'd prefer that it not be a trail race but I might not have the option of being picky. Anyway, if anyone has a good race suggestion, please let me know! I'd love to find one sometime in December. Additionally, if anyone out there would be interested in running it too, shoot me an email.

Fun Run, St. Patrick's Day Parade, and Scheduling Conflicts

Okay, so while I do refer to it as a fun run, make no mistake; it was pretty tough. It was good, though, and definitely different from most of the runs I do. I've biked across the George Washington Bridge, which is mildly terrifying, but I'd never run across it until Saturday. When all was said and done we'd done about 16 miles. This run has a story behind it, as well. On Thursday the run was on my mind since we'd planned on doing another long run in preparation for the New Jersey Ultra Fest. Originally I'd planned on doing all or at least part of an 18 mile route that goes back and forth between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, crossing the Williamsburg, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queensborough, and Pulaski bridges. The bridges provide plenty in terms of challenging hills. The Queensborough feels especially endless, just like it does in the NYC Marathon. I was all set to do that route when I spoke with my friend Helen, whom I hadn't told about the run. She mentioned that the Hoboken St. Patrick's Day parade was taking place on Saturday and that a friend of hers was having a party starting at 9:30 (yes, in the morning). I glumly responded that I would be in the midst of a run at that time and so wouldn't be able to make it. She suggested (possibly jokingly, I'm not really sure) that I should run there. I sort of dismissed it at first, but then it began to grow on me. I love functional runs. So I mapped it out and made sure Jared was okay with it.

We started at about 9:30 and made our way north to Central Park. I decided to go up the east side of the park since it would give us a little more in terms of distance. We made it up to Harlem Hill and exited from the northwest corner of the park. We then ran west on 110th street until we got to Riverside Dr. We ran along that from about 110 to 160 and then had to take a right onto Fort Washington in order to make it toward the ramp of the GWB. That ramp was much less scary when I ran it than when I biked it. Running the bridge itself is glorious, the hill doesn't seem that bad and the wind is great, not to mention the view. Once we got off the bridge, I was a little worried that we wouldn't be able to get to River Road, which is what we ended up spending most of our time running in New Jersey. But it was fine, the ramp led right to it and we began running south in New Jersey. It got a little boring at that point since we ran along the same road for about 7 miles, but it was still much different than what I normally run.

We made it down to the Port Imperial ferry terminal, where Jared had to catch the ferry back to the city for a Quidditch match. I took the light rail into Hoboken and did, in fact, make it to the party and even managed to see some of the parade.





Unfortunately, I did not do the indoor triathlon today. When I signed up for it I completely forgot that I had a sketch comedy class at noon. Under normal circumstances I would have done the tri and shown up to class late, but if I had been more than 15 minutes late I wouldn't have been let in. I did go down to Park Slope anyway hoping that I'd at least be able to do one or two parts of it. No luck, though. On the bright side, the race director said I could apply the entry fee to the championships on March 27th.

So that is that for the weekend. I continued my streak today by doing the Phoebe Loop. People are always entertained when we run by; it's probably because Phoebe looks like a running sausage with pointy ears.  Upcoming this week: tri training. I'm hoping to get in a couple of swims, a couple of runs, and some time on the spin bike. Eventually I'll need to start doing rides in the park in order to prepare for when I can start training with Team Lipstick again. I still have a phobia of biking with a group, and the only way to fix that is to put in the time and the miles. Hopefully I'll also be able to get my new bike soon.

One more thing, vote in my poll! Tell me what your goals are this spring and let me know if there's one that I've missed.

Whew...Back Again

What a week. After returning from Ithaca, I went to Boston last minute on Wednesday to visit my brother Matthew. I also came down with a very unfortunate cold that made my running on Monday through Wednesday (and even last night, to some extent) very unpleasant. I didn't do too much of it, not much more than the requisite mile. After running about a half mile when my cold was in the development phase, my throat would start burning and it made the rest of the mile miserable. I tried to make up for my lack of distance by incorporating some speed, even if it was just a little bit. I ran 1.5 miles on Wednesday and did the first mile at a pretty leisurely 9:13 pace, but did the last half mile at a 7:00 pace.

What I haven't been able to regain a hold of is my 100 sit-ups streak. It's on and off. Last night I did them, but not on Wednesday. But rather than accept it as something I don't have time to do, I would like to reclaim it as a streak. I think it's definitely made a difference in overall strength and I may even be able to see additional midsection definition. It's amazing what five minutes per day can do.

So now that the cold is on its way out, it's time to get back to business. Jared is currently doing the Paleo 101 challenge on Social Workout. Also, we've decided to try to be ready for the New Jersey Ultra Festival in a little under a month. This is going to be a very large undertaking, as we'll need to be ready to run 50 miles in not very much time. The current plan is to run 13 miles tomorrow, as a prep intro, 18 next weekend, then 24-30 the weekend after along with a couple of midweek long runs. This is really ambitious, but since Jared may be traveling to Germany soon, this is probably our best 50 mile option right now. So now I have indoor triathlon + ultra training to be doing. I think I'll need to draft a detailed plan for this because it's kind of overwhelming to think about. Anyway, part of Jared's challenge is making a Paleo-style dinner. The plan is to have paleo dinner and then go running early tomorrow morning before Quidditch. This is probably the route we will take:



It'll take us around the tip of Manhattan and to the Upper West Side ending at Crunch Gym, where our Quidditch equipment is currently in storage. We'll pick it up and head to practice after that. One thing's for sure: it'll be a busy day!