Month: October 2010

Today I set out with Elizabeth to do some hill training. We set out to do a warm-up run of 3 miles, then mount Great Hill up, down, and back 3-4 times. We lasted for 1 before Elizabeth suffered from a little injury so I called it quits. But we did it once, and I got to introduce her to the kind of training.

We started off with a very slow (well, it felt that way anyway) jog up to the Great Hill area. We crossed the 102nd St. Transverse so I could show her where the turnaround point was. We jogged up then down the hill then to find our starting point. Here are those deets:

In that jog I felt really wretched. My legs felt as if they had two medium dogs clutching my calves with their teeth. I wasn’t sore so much as just uncomfortable running. Eventually I warmed up but the psychic pressure was tough.

When Elizabeth and I started our hill repeats, I took off like a ROCKET! Halfway up the hill I really started to conk out, though. I got down the hill at a decent speed, then back up decently too, then back down I picked up speed. While I’ve felt faster in my hill sprints on Great Hill, turns out I did pretty well! I did it in 6:44. Last year I don’t think I ever cracked 7:00. Granted, last year I probably ran about 90 feet more (I put my turnaround point this year too soon, but it did make for nearly an exact mile!), but it was still a strong showing, much better than I expected. Here are the deets from the first (and only) hill:

Elizabeth had a pain in her shin (it’s been nagging her) and a pain in her ankle, both of which were aggravated by the last downhill. I decided we should stop, so we subwayed back after stretching. She did pretty awesome, though! I think she did the same distance in 7:16.

The weather was glorious: cloudless and cool at 64 degrees in the early afternoon. My body was probably “complaining” still from the huge mileage I did over the weekend, not completely ready or glycogen’d for running today. But I got out! And so did Elizabeth! And we finally got to run again together!

Now I have NON-RESPONSIVE legs! Ha! Today’s 10.01 miles over Queensboro Bridge and around Central Park was quite the contrast from yesterday’s shorter run. My legs just didn’t want to go as fast as they wanted to yesterday! No worries, though, since I probably didn’t load up on enough carbs to carry me fast for long. And lest I forget, I did do what is becoming the notoriously slow path of from-my-home, over-the-bridge, down-East-60th. I did the distance in 7:43s, which isn’t great, but it was 71 degrees which felt on the verge of warm, and my calves and ankles were pretty sore from running about 38.5 miles over the last 3 days. Here are the deets:

The highlight of this run was a small Asian guy who passed me on Great Hill. His physique suggested he was a much better runner than me. He got some uncatchable distance from me. Before that point, a tall possibly Indian runner passed me, who didn’t look all that better than me but was putting on a good show. I thought it was lost to reach both of them. THEN, though, they looked strikeable.

I set my mind to catching them. First, I timed in my head how many seconds it took me to reach the Asian fellow’s landmark. That is, he’d pass a pole, and I’d count how many seconds it would take me to reach that landmark. First measure? 24 seconds. Second measure? About 21 seconds. I kept lowering my measures. Over the course, the Indian fellow didn’t catch the Asian fellow, dropping out before he had a chance to. But I kept closing in on the Asian fellow. I was doing this intentionally. I wanted to see if I might possibly be able to pass him.

And sure enough, I got darn close. At one point, I was within 2 seconds of him. He was right there. But I was also picturing how much I had to keep up this huffy pace in order to stay in front of him. My will just wasn’t there, so I pulled back and slowed down. I did make an impressive catch-up, though, and over the course of a mile or so, I nearly caught the guy. Fun! This all happened in the 8th and 9th miles, starting just south of the Reservoir. I was doing somewhere between a 7:00 and a 7:21.

Man, my calves hurt, my ankles here, and my Achilles hurts, too. I’ve really pushed myself. And I’m thinking of doing candlelight yoga in the park tonight to get my stretch on. I’m not planning on running tomorrow, instead resting my body and prepping it for another long week on set. I’m having Oglio & Aglio with Chicken right now, plus a Double Berry Protein Zone Naked Juice to get up the glycogen stores that were probably depleted for today’s run, and build muscle. But all in all, it was another beautiful day in Central Park, and what a gorgeous, gorgeous weekend. Cheers!

Today’s run was yet again BEAUTIFUL. It was 69 degrees, it felt cool, and my body was actually RESPONSIVE after yesterday’s 23-miler. You’ll note from my deets that my pace was slow in the beginning. This was because I kept hitting lights in Queens and Manhattan. But once I hit Central Park for my last 1.7 miles or so, I flew. I did one of those miles in 6:59 and the last .57 in 6:43. My legs were taking off. Here are those lovely deets:

It should be known that my calves and ankles were sore, mostly my calves. I also had some hip soreness. But once I got that first block out of the way, I warmed back up.

I did this shorter distance because I did a longer-than-scheduled run on Friday. I was only supposed to do 8, and I did ~9.8. Today I was supposed to do 7, so I did a little less.

That’s about all there is to say today. But man, it was gorgeous. Happy Autumn.