Catching up

It feels like it has been forever since I last wrote in my blog.  It’s actually been 9 days, which is too long a break.  It’s just been hard to get the time to sit and write.  Life is pretty hectic right now and it’s hard enough just to find the time to exercise, let alone write about it!  On top of already feeling guilty about escaping my house to run in the evenings, my 7 year old was complaining to me about how I’m never around and how I need to spend so much time exercising and running.  She certainly has learned how to pull the right guilt strings, and I’ll try to be careful to make sure I make time to spend with her, as well as time to run and go to the gym.

Anyway, going back over a week to last weekend, I fully intended to get a nice 6-7 mile run in, but I couldn’t get myself out the door.  Sunday was my target, but the timing just didn’t work.  My mother-in-law had her birthday party, my wife was working much of the afternoon/evening, and I needed to be around for my kids.  Then, I skipped Sunday night and Monday morning.  It didn’t help that I was still trying to shake off a cold and had a really bad cough.  Running in the cold isn’t necessarily the best thing for that!

By Monday night, I finally made some time to run.  Decided to do the out and back down over the Williamsburg Bridge.   Nice, strong effort.   Covered the 5.9 miles in 54:12.  It was nice not to cut the run short, or stop mid-run for Gatorade, which are my last memories of that course from the summertime.

Got to the gym on Tuesday, and then out for another run Wednesday night.  Wed night I did another 5.9 mile run.  Up to 38th St on the East River, and then looped all the way down 1st Ave to the East River and up Ave A.  Had another nice run, but didn’t catch Delancey Street properly and had to wait 45 seconds for the green light.  Including the stop, finished the 5.9 mile loop in 56:43.

Didn’t do much in the way of exercise the entire rest of the week.  Went to the Knicks game with my wife on Friday night, which was lots of fun.  Haven’t been to a game in Madison Square Garden in years.  Knicks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder (who the heck are they?) 116-106.  On Saturday morning  I shuttled my wife and 7 years old to the Noguchi Museum in Queens for some arts and crafts.  While they were in the museum, I was planning to head out to the remnants of Shea Stadium to snap some pictures of the destruction, but Mother Nature decided to downpour on us, so I skipped it and headed back to Manhattan to help my 12 year old get some things done in the rain.  Late in the afternoon, we headed out to my weekend house in New Jersey till early Sunday.

Was able to get a good run in last night (Sunday).  Did the 6.5 mile downtown loop.  It was actually a spectacular run.  I always obsess with catching the green lights on major intersections, and on this course, I know all the places to speed up to make it through smoothly.  I can notice a distinct difference now vs a few months ago.  It is definitely easier to hit the necessary marks to get through the green lights.  There was a stiff wind blowing against me on the trip downtown.  Since the headwind was in the early miles of my run, I was able to keep a strong pace and not get slowed down too much.  This worked to my advantage, as I definitely had the wind at my back in the last 2 miles when heading uptown.  With the wind, I had a very strong finish, and ended up finishing the 6.5 mile course in 58:20.  This is my personal best on this course, by 7 seconds beating the record set in April, at the height of my fitness before the summer.   

Was able to get to the gym again tonight, so I feel like I’m back on track.  Trying to plan my long run strategy in preparation for the Austin Marathon.  I’m thinking of doing the same set of long runs, in the same intervals, that I did for the New York marathon.  This will give me a great comparison to see where I am in my training.  My first long run will be right after Thanksgiving, about 76 days before the race.

In fact, looking back on the week, I ran 3 times for 18.3 miles and got to the gym twice.  I really love this weather (all runs this week were in the mid 40 degree range) and look forward to great runs in Nov and Dec before the frigid weather hits.