3 days to the Chicago Marathon! And I had a very busy day.
First, after rest days on Monday and Tuesday, had a nice easy shake-out run of 4 miles on Wednesday morning. Everything felt great. I was relieved that I had no muscle soreness or pain from the triathlon on Sunday. The only issue was a slight tightness in my right shin, which really is not a concern, just a warning that I need to pay attention to it.
Ran again early this morning, 4.4 miles, and felt great. My pace was faster today as well, in part aided by a tailwind while heading up the promenade next to the east river. Today, my company was participating in several volunteer activities, one of which was cleaning up a park. I also choose that type of activity, and was excited at the prospect of learning something new, and just helping out a park that otherwise may be neglected. The park was Highbridge Park, in upper Manhattan, along the Harlem River.
Since the distance is not terribly far, about 12 miles, and I could go to/from home, and can easily park my bike, that I would bike to and from the park. So bike I did, about 12 miles each way. Probably not the wisest of decisions, but I think worth it. It definitely gave my legs some nice cross-training work, although, I was definitely saddle sore by the end of the day. Hopefully that clears up by Sunday! So after all the activity today (run, 2 bike rides, outdoor manual labor, etc) I am beat and looking forward to a solid night sleep.
The only potential problem with working in the park today, is that the park was infested with poison ivy. We got plenty of warnings, and it was all clearly pointed out to us, although we would be working in some areas that had the ivy. It didn’t concern me too much, as I get poison ivy a couple of times a year from the shrubs at my weekend house in NJ, in fact most recently 2 weeks ago, that is just now fading. It is very annoying, but usually bearable, so I don’t think a huge risk. Sure enough, tonight, I’m quite a bit itchy on one spot on my wrist, and on several spots on my legs. Since I didn’t handle any of the ivy, I’m wondering if perhaps I was bitten up by mosquitoes. I’ll have a better sense tomorrow what I’m dealing with, but even if a bit itchy, I don’t think it will have much of an effect on my race.
Hard to believe that this is the 26th day in a row that I have blogged! Hopefully a nice habit started, so that when the race is over, I continue to blog more often than 3 times a month, which is what I had fallen too in recent months.
Finally, very excited my whole family (me plus wife and my 2 girls) is making the trip to Chicago. Will be a fun family outing. We are about all packed up, and will head out to ORD via LGA in the morning tomorrow!
Previous Entries: 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
