Category: Runs

Today’s run was a warm, slightly hazy 65 degrees in Central Park with Elizabeth Corkum. It was a run of a couple firsts. First Number 1? My first official run using my Garmin Forerunner 405CX. First Number 2? Upon completion of 6.3 miles, just after a final sprint, I convulsed twice and almost vomited. That’s never happened in my years of training!

I attribute the wretchedness to the consumption of 3 Redline Ultra Hardcore about 2 hours before the run, plus general dehydration in light of the pills but also in light of my resistance to drink a lot of water just before a run (for fear of needing to go to the bathroom). Of those two factors, the Redline was probably more the culprit as I barely ever have trained with energy pills in my system, especially not in warm weather. Another factor is that I’m not quite fit yet, running at an 8:00 pace per mile rather than something more than a minute faster like last year. I should note, too, that around mile 2, I felt pain in my kidney area (middle back), which could be related to strain on my kidneys.

Whatever. The more important thing about this run is my Garmin! So far so good. The reviews I heard about this wonderful device were far from absolutely glowing, since apparently this bezel on the watch (or “super-watch,” as I preferred to call it to Elizabeth) goes unresponsive or just darn crazy when it gets wet. The advice I heard was to lock the bezel when running to avoid this spasming, and as much as that didn’t sound like an ideal solution, it seemed to work for me! I turned the Auto Scroll on to Medium and it seemed to be fine. It beeped at every mile (each mile was considered a lap), and it also gave me my instantaneous pace. From the watch, I learned that my pace slowed down considerably in the second half of my run (it’s hillier). Interesting! I foresee great possibilities with this watch, though I’m curious what frustrations might be lurking when I train with it in wet weather. Will I be able to set the darn thing if it’s raining when I start?

As for Elizabeth, she was showing me up in places during the run (she was passing guys quite often!), though we were overall pretty evenly matched. That was a great feeling. She has a Philly 10-mile race coming up in 3 weeks and I foresee good things for her. She strikes me as just competitive enough to impress herself with her finish time in that race.

Yesterday I received a brand-new running toy: The Garmin Forerunner 405CX. It’s an expensive running watch with GPS, heart-rate monitoring, pace-monitoring, and lots of other cool statistics.

The watch is linked to an account I have set up with Garmin. Using that account, I can embed in my blog maps of my runs plus their respective stats. From what I can tell, this will be a very helpful way to monitor my progress as I train this year for the NYC Marathon, and also provide you some interesting visuals as I train. You might end up learning more about my running that I do!

In what may turn out to be a dependency, I ran again today with Elizabeth Corkum, who did pretty well despite a great pizza party she threw last night. It was Central Park, laden with springtime revelers soaking in the beauty that was today.

Blue skies and a great temperature that seemed warmer than what was on the thermometer paved the way for a well-paced run. This was my first shirtless run of the season, an event I rejoiced in because it is just so liberating and complementary to my task (and it doesn’t leave me with chafed nips!). I didn’t pressure myself to do any speed in this run, though I sprinted for about 90 ft. around Mile 2 and in the last bit where I always do. Elizabeth kept pace throughout the whole run, even despite some instability in the last mile. She fought and won! I just used this run as a leisurely run for-the-sake-of-running, so not much to report.

On the chemical side, pumping through me was Redline Ultra Hardcore, a new supplement that seems to be quite wonderful (if you’re the Devil). I seemed to have some pain in the kidney area of my back around Mile 2.5, which is just something to log. Doing supplements like that might affect my kidneys (I have no idea) as the caffeine presumably dehydrates me, and I tend to already run without much in the way of liquids (for fear of needing to take distracting bathroom breaks). We’ll see how these things affect me if I use them again pre-run.