Month: September 2010

Yea! Wonderful weather greeted me on my long run this week (actually, my second long run if you want to get technical). The tropical storm Earl blew somewhere into the area yesterday and all we really got were residual winds today. It was sunny with partly cloudy skies, a nice shelter occasionally from the sun (but I still ended up with a funny waistline tan). Temperature? About 71 getting up to 72 with only about 37% humidity. I did 16 miles in 2:03:39, or 7:43s. And Garmin said I burned, get this, 2,222 calories! My scale said I lost 8 lbs, getting back down to 170. Here are the deets:

Today’s run presented mostly mental tests. My brain first had trouble figuring out how it wanted to put together the recommended 15-miler today. Once I settled on doing 3 lesser loops in Central Park, and finishing where Garmin says 16 miles, my next struggle was not to stop at doing simply 10 miles today. I also struggled with stamina a little. My choice method for getting over those thoughts was the “shrink & blow away” method: I shrink the thought down to the size of a period, then I blow it away, freeing my mind up for what is presently before me. It is such a helpful trick for getting past upsetting thoughts!

The only people who passed me were people who abandoned their runs or turned off soon after passing me. That was 2, maybe 3 men. My legs felt decent–nothing really to complain about. I tried out some new Nike running socks I picked up because I’d been running out of socks. They felt fine and were supposed to give midfoot support a little bit, and I just remembered, Actually, I felt some plantar discomfort. I will have to keep track of that and manage it: It really got me last year. So far I’ve logged 59.04 miles this week … one more day to go! I think if I do really much more, I’ll have set a record weekly mileage for myself. However, pacewise, I’m really off from last year, when around this time I was doing 10-milers in 6:50ishes. I want to focus on pace soon.

Ice bath after, plus Nake Juice Protein Zone. And some fiber bars.

Today, Garminless by mistake, I ran approximately 8.15 miles in 79-degree heat with around 60% humidity in Central Park. I did it in 1:02:04, so that comes out to be 7:37s. I did a full loop plus a lower loop and then some on the East Drive feeder–my standard run of last year.

While I could tell I was a little slower today because I was following along with The Flaming Lips’ album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, I felt pretty darn good. I was actually surprised that I wasn’t measuring a faster pace because that’s what I thought I was going!

Other than that, nothing else to say. It was nice to get my mind back around running this distance, though. After my run, I made the same smoothie as yesterday but added mango chunks, too–yum. So far I’m at ~43.03 miles in 4 consecutive days.

Today I surprised myself. I started off today’s run in powerful late-morning sunshine and temperatures between 90 and 92 wanting to stop after just a half mile. I worked on my brain (the mind is bigger thing to train than the legs), telling myself just to pace myself. Somehow I settled into a pace that powered me for 11.01 miles. Whoa. Pace was key. Also what was key was that the film Premium Rush was filming, and I wanted to do a second lap to say hi again to some of my friends working it who saw me the first time around. I did two sans loops (which I’ll now maybe call “lesser loops”), plus I ran just past the entrance to the N/Q/R train on Central Park South to get a full 11th mile. Here are the deets:

My body was definitely taxed by the heat, but nothing seemed to ail me. Only one person passed me and there were few people running in the park. At 90-92, it was damn hot, about 10 degrees hotter than I expected! I ended up losing about 5 lbs., getting down again to 170 lbs. after the run. I didn’t know how many miles I’d do today, though my training schedule said to do 10 miles. I’m not really back on track, but it’s nice that I got that in.

I forgot to have my ArginMax and quercetin today, but I had a Gatorade 01 bar about an hour before running. After the run, I made a scrumptious smoothie with 40g of protein, plus yogurt and peanut butter for added protein.

Quite an accomplishment to pull off this today, as well as 3 days in a row. In the last 3 days, I’ve done 34.88 miles.