Had a very busy weekend running around all over the place.
Was at my house in New Jersey Friday night into Saturday lunchtime. Had to get all the leaves out from the back of the house to the street. Hard labor, but fun. My 13 year old helped me drag the tarp out and back a whole bunch of times to generate the very large pile you see below. My little one, as you can see, would love to take the credit!
Giant leaf pile
Then made some time for a speed workout session at the track at East River Park. My intention was to get it in before dark, but it unfortunately gets dark at 5pm these days. Made it to the track about 5:10. The good news is that the construction work definitely seems to be progressing on both the next new section of the promenade (at the track), and in the replacement of the main road surface at the north end of the park.
In terms of the run, had fantastic results. My first 1 mile interval was completed in 7:10. 7:10!!!! Shaved 9 seconds off my time from last week. Had enough in me to finish a second mile in 7:22, more than 10 seconds faster than my 2nd mile in the last workout. Finished up with 2 half mile intervals, at 3:28 and 3:22. Weather was cold, but bearable. Park was very dark, and very empty. Couple of other hearty souls out there when I started, but I had the track to myself at the end. At around 5:40ish, a bank of lights actually came on at the track. It covered about a quarter of the track, but at least we were not in complete darkness…
Was then up early Sun morning to volunteer at the Joe Kleinerman 10k, to fulfill my requirements for entry to the 2009 New York City Marathon. It was very cold, and my toes were frozen from being outside for 4 hours, but it was a lot of fun. I patrolled the 1000 (red) corral at the start, and then was cheering the runners on just before the 6 mile mark during the race.
In the afternoon, made a trek up to Westchester with my wife’s family for a cemetery visit to mark the death anniversary of a family member. We typically do this once a year and then have a giant meal. This year we went to Valentino’s, in Yonkers. It was wonderful and I completely and thoroughly stuffed myself, to the point where I thought I might block an artery and have a heart attack on the spot! It may have been one of the most gluttonous meals I ever had – not good for the diet.
Therefore, later in the evening, made it a point to get to the gym. Since the signs of my shoulder strain from Thursday were gone, I went ahead with a nice upper body workout and a bunch of crunches.
My final accomplishment of the weekend was hooking up my new DVD burner (picked up a refurb unit at a steal at http://www.woot.com in the last Woot Off) to my collection of electronics connected to my TV. See the crazy picture below – above the TV we first have the VCR (still have a bunch of VHS laying around), then the Verizon FIOS cable box (must use the cable box with FIOS), then the TiVo (I know many cable operators have DVR’s, including Verizon, but TiVo completely rocks), and finally my new DVD Burner (hooray!). Amazingly, they are all operational – I am in heaven – can finally offload some stuff from my TiVo to DVD. This includes all the Shea Stadium specials plus the final game at Shea, and the NYC marathon coverage from channel 4.
electronics
