Category: Runs

In runningspeak, LSD refers not to a drug. Instead, it refers to “long, slow distance,” that long run you do weekly as your train for a marathon. I was unable to get in my 20-miler last weekend because of work, so I set out to log 20 early this morning. I did 16.01 miles instead, mostly because I was having some gastric distress but also because I was slowed down, probably because of the comfortable humidity and the wet weather around me. I did feel a whole lot better having squeezed in this run after wrapping late on Nurse Jackie, with a mid-morning calltime for the show today. Up at 5:30am and left my apartment at 6:12am. Here are the deets:

As you can tell, I only did 8:05s. I felt I was running better than that but not exceptionally fast. My legs felt pretty good though I did tire at some point in the run. I crossed the Queensboro Bridge in the dark but didn’t get to make it back because I finished where I could subway home.

After, I went to Duane Reade and picked up their Code Blue recovery drink and a GABA drink. I made an egg-on-a-bagel to take to work, where I had that and Fage yogurt. I ate generally well today, which was nice for a change. I took 2 ibuprofen to deal with sore Achilles tendons. While they were uncomfortable a little bit, they didn’t flare up like the left one did last week.

In the battle between LSD and Nurse Jackie, LSD won.

This morning was my first run back from the Atlantic City Half-Marathon. That was Sunday, and Monday morning I continued to have stiff calves and delicate ankles. Some ibuprofen was my main course of remedy, but by Monday evening I compared my ankles and noticed that my left ankle was considerably swollen. Well, not so much the ankle, but just under the Achilles tendon, just above the ankle. Palpating the tendon didn’t seem to hurt. I first thought this was some kind of capsule inflammation, but a little research suggests to me it’s what was called Achilles tendonitis (“Achilles inflammation”) and now more properly called Achilles tendonopathy (“Achilles degeneration”). (Apparently the shift in verbiage was a result of microscopic investigation of purported inflammation, which ended up being degeneration. I may have my facts a bit off, keep in mind.)

As a result, I was comfortable not running Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. My work schedule made it hard, but talking to a dancer friend yesterday led me to feel a bit rosier about the condition, maybe even something I should continue running through. Granted, that sounds counterintuitive and quite possibly contraindicated, but it felt good to be out to do 10.25 miles this morning over the Queensboro Bridge and around Central Park, shirtlessly in 52-degree cloudy weather. I felt alive and my ankle was pretty solid throughout the run. Here are the deets:

I thought my Garmin was fried after I was on the subway ride home–it suddenly shut down and started to start up but would keep shutting down and beeping. When I got home, I found out it had run out of battery! I had thought I charged it fully but maybe a contact didn’t happen and the battery drained. It seems to be charging now, and the results transferred fine.

I ran 7:27s but that’s a bit misleading. I had traffic again in Manhattan, though not nearly as badly as some days. That slowed me down to an 8:21 in that area, which is oddly a consistent pace for that trafficky leg. I also did a 7:41 just after that, also because I had to pause for some Central Park morning traffic crossing in front of me. Aside from that, my laps seem pretty solid, and I even sped up at the end of the run. The end of the run was a bit more reliable terrain–no hills, no traffic, no bridges.

I focused a bit on my quads during this run and it seemed to help. I imagined my quads as the most important part to think of during my run. That imaging flew a bit out the window when a faster runner moved effortlessly in front of me; I focused instead on seeing if I could outpace him but it didn’t happen. But overall, the imaging was pretty helpful and even seemed familiar. It made me wonder how my pace would be if I worked more on my quads in this lead-up to the NYC Marathon.

The lower parts of both calves are still a bit sore, but it’s something I think I am okay to deal with. This run came on about 7 hours of sleep. I haven’t been able to get much more than 6 hours a night the last few nights which isn’t ideal. Nor have I iced my inflammation, which also would be good. Hopefully I can stay healthy and just bang out a great marathon very soon!

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!