Month: September 2010

… And Then It Was Done

Today I ran the Continental Airlines 5th Avenue Mile. I didn’t bring my Garmin to track my race, but it goes from E. 80th to E. 60th along 5th Avenue. Last year I ran it in a surprising 5:19. This year, I set my goal as 5:45 and I ran it in 5:40. I was a little disappointed and sad with my results, but come to think of it, given that I’d done 18.35 miles a little more than 12 hours before, I didn’t do that bad. Here’s video from the event:

Watch live streaming video from nyrr at livestream.com

The temperature was about 66 degrees and pretty favorable for a run, though at this temperature, speed starts to diminish a bit. I started about 20 feet from the start line, so I didn’t have as good of a position as last year. When the gun went off, I had to fight a little to get some space, and I nearly hit a guy who was clutching his hamstring right after his start, notably an acute injury he unfortunately experienced. (He actually finished, though!) While I was steady up the hill from 75th St. to 71st St., I could tell that my body just wasn’t in a position to output superspeed. Things seemed in “soft motion.” I hit the 1/4-mile mark around 1:21 and the 1/2-mile mark around 2:30 (I think just after mounting the hill). That it took me 2:30 to do a half-mile disappointed me a bit because I was on pace for a 6:00, but I quickly relieved and focused when I realized it was downhill for a bit so I could pick up some time. This year I was able to push myself better in the long distance to the finish (which you can see for a while), and I knew I came in under 5:45 given a start a few seconds after the gun. Elizabeth came to watch and I heard her say my name just before I finished.

I had hoped for most of the year to break 5:00 in this race. It just wasn’t happening. The events in my life this year have divided up my head so that I haven’t been as energized and focused on running. My age grade percentage was 66.66% compared to last year’s 70.5%, which isn’t bad but I’m still a bit off. I have a little more than a month until the NYC Marathon.

While my body felt alright this morning after having ice bathed last night and slept in compression socks, I did wrestle with a bit of a cold (sniffles with a little bit of a sore throat), contracted Friday during a long day on set fueled a bit by caffeine I haven’t had much of recently. I’m still a bit sniffly at dinnertime Sunday, and I can tell it’s sapping my energy a bit despite an afternoon nap.

But there you have it.

What? 87??

For today’s run, I started out with a bit of shock. WeatherBug said it was 87 degrees in Central Park! Fortunately, though, it was a cool 87. More like 86, going down to 84 as I passed the CNN Tower twice. Humidity was only around 30%. How did it feel? Like 72 degrees.

I set out to do 22 miles, but I ended up running out of gas at 18.35 miles. I did the new path of running from my home to Central Park. I was going to do two loops of CP plus one lower loop; I adjusted that in my head to two loops plus running up to E. 90th, then down to the finish for tomorrow’s Continental Airlines 5th Avenue Mile; I ended up actually turning at the north part of the museum and stopping just across the street from the finish line. When I looked down, my shorts were streaked with salt. I only lost about 3 lbs. in this run, but exhaustion is apparent. Oh, and I did this starting after 4pm. Here are the deets:

I worked somewhere around 65 hours this week. Despite that, I got in some running but I had trouble getting it in later in the week given how late we were going. Because of a predicted wrap time of 2:30am yesterday, I chose to go the energy drink route and had a Rock Star Zero Carb in the morning before my calltime. Then, at lunchtime around 7pm, I had a Red Bull Sugar-Free. When I wrapped at 3:30am after over 15 hours at work, I was still pretty awake but also feeling a little bit of a sore throat (from the caffeine? not sure) so I had an antihistamine to get me to sleep. I work around noon, had some eggs and a bagel, then tried to sleep until 3pm.

I had two PowerGels and a nice amount of water over the run. The energy drinks notably dehydrated me and I was left with cottonmouth for much of the run. I ran a pretty slow pace of 8:19s, sometimes hitting paces above 9:00s, but it was warm and it was a long run so I wasn’t too worried. I was a bit sad I didn’t make it back home, choosing to subway instead. But I reason I need some energy for my 1-mile race tomorrow.

When I got home, I bathed in ice water, had a Gatorade Recovery drink, and ate some pieces of chicken. I believe I’m having pasta a little later to restore glycogen. I still feel a bit under the weather and really tired. I think some of the drain may be from the caffeine and antihistamines, not just the run.

Under Attack

Um, I had a bit of an attack at the end of my run today.

But beyond that, I did 9.84 miles after work today. I started just past 9pm and went from my home, over Queensboro Bridge, and around Central Park. I had originally set the ambitious goal of running 15.5 miles, but the attack kept me from surging any more forward, plus my training schedule only suggests 10 miles. Dark, 64 degrees, cool, and perfect fall-like weather. My legs felt as if they were flying. Here are the deets:

The hill that is the bridge was easier for me to deal with today. I definitely felt faster, which might have been symptomatic of the dark, but felt more symptomatic of the Saturday hill work in my long run. My time doesn’t really reflect the faster time, nor does the map which should have shown the numerous stops for red lights I had to make along East 60th Street. From the animated playback of my run, it seems I covered 8 miles in 1:00:20, which is okay though still a bit slower than I want to go.

Before the run I had ArginMax and quercetin, both of which I’ve been having fairly regularly but forgetting to mention in my blog posts. I’m not entirely sure what brought on my attack, though I have some ideas.