Nightrunning

I officially have the song nightswimming by R.E.M. stuck in my head…anyone?

Anywho. As I mentioned yesterday, I had attempted to wake up early and get a run in before work, but sleep got the better of me. I pushed snooze and lounged almost until it was time to walk out the door.

My original plan to wake up early had had many reasons. I really want to get myself back in the habit of early morning runs before the new job takes off on Monday morning. I also really wanted to get myself in the habit before November 12th, when I’ll have to wake up at 5 something in the a.m. before running 26.2 miles. Eeks.

But I’ve been told sleep is just as important–if not more important–than mileage during taper time. So I took the mini fail in stride.

As often happens in the restaurant business, I didn’t get out until a full hour later than I had anticipated. This meant I had to tell Katherine to run without me, rather than continually keep her waiting (sorry again, Katherine!) and change up  my own Central Park attack plan. Since it was getting dark out and I had gorged myself on a gross amount of spinach dip before leaving the restaurant, I didn’t think the 12 miles I had planned would have been the greatest idea. Instead, I figured I’d see how busy the park was (I’d never really run it at night before) and if it looked like there was a good sweat crowd out, I’d do one outer loop and then head home.

Well, you know me. I’m stubborn.

I had 12 miles on the brain yesterday, and so 12 miles is what I ended up doing. Oops.

In all fairness, the park was probably just as dark as it would have been had I made it out at 6:30 a.m. (watch this be the one time my parents decide to read the blog and go apeshit when they see I DARED enter the park after dusk), but it was ALIVE with runners, bikers, tourists and who knows who else!

There were lots of glowstick-clad pace training groups sandwiching me in every segment of the run, and I felt 100% safe. And I guess the “newness” of a nighttime run super charged me, because the spinach dip as fuel did not have any negative impact on my run. In fact, it was best run I’ve had in a couple of days–I felt great!

I did one outer loop as planned, including the full scale of Harlem Hills, and then stuck around for one more 4-mile jaunt around an inner loop.

There were more bats than the birds I’m used to seeing. So that was weird. And I did get a little confused by the corral-like structures lining the west side of the park for this weekends marathon and had to retrace my steps a few times, but the run was otherwise a dream. Awesome views of the city skyline lit up, great weather, and an overall feeling of excitement from the other groups of runners and the entire west side of the park, but specifically, this little gem:

again, dumphone quality. but if you're a runner, you likely already know that this is the finish line of the ING NYC marathon. annnnd says "run for life" on it. LOVE.

I figure last night may have been the last chance I’ll have to get that close to the finish line…until maybe next November? We’ll see.

Once I got home I tried to be better about stretching and foam rolling and then spent the remainder of the evening stalking every single page of the Richmond Marathon to see if there’s anything I’m missing. It appears that the elevation for the course is considerably flat though, so I’ll be good to go if I keep my runs from here on out along Riverside park or even just the neighborhood streets. Because other than an 8-10 mile jog on Saturday, I really, really REALLY want to keep the distance down to Hal’s taper time recommendation. If you see me post about any other longer runs, leave your computer, hit the streets and track me down. And then punch me in the arm and drag me home. Because taper time means rest time.

Not sure what’s on the agenda for today, but very likely some wandering around the city until my shift at 4:00, because its beautifulllll outside If there’s time, perhaps a VERY EASY 3-4 mile shakeout run, or maybe even a spin class to switch things up a bit! Who knows. Recommendations welcome!

*All this of course…AFTER I watch Hoda (and KLG, if that mention is necessary. sorry, that was mean). It’s my second-to-last morning of non-office freedom to enjoy the Today Show, so my butt will be glued here for a few. And I just found out Hoda and KLG will be reporting from Orlando [read: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter] next week. Maybe I should have put my work start date off a few days? Bahaha/Sera, sera.

Have a very happy Thursday kids!

Holy Wow

I finally took a break from the June Cleaver to-do list yesterday and made it out for a jaunt around the beautiful Central Park that I devoted a lot of gushing words toward. While my knees may have preferred the comfort of the bridle path, I opted to do the outer loop–ALL of the outer loop [read: Harlem Hills]. To the park and back adds about 2 miles so I finished up at 8ish for the afternoon.

From there, I scurried home to shower as fast as humanly possible, because I had yet another interview in midtown. This was round 2 for this particular company, but since I’ve made it to second and third rounds of interview approximately 4323643 times with no good news to follow, I certainly don’t have my hopes up about this one [but let's be real, I sort of do].

I thought maybe the achiness in my legs could have been from me finally sissing out after Friday’s long run/once again falling behind on strength training and stretching. And since I was in midtown anyway, and the JD alerted me he likely wouldn’t be home until midnight or so (really, the lawyer life BLOWS) I scooted over to the gym to hop on the ellip and pump some iron (go ahead, chuckle at the thought)!

So this morning when the alarm went off at the lovely hour of 6:30 a.m. and then again at 6:45 (I do so love the snooze button), it was difficult to drag my butt out of bed. Luckily, I had secured plans last night to run with Katherine. And the beauty of a running buddy is, as much as you want to be lazy, you can’t leave a running friend waiting. Oh but wait.

I pulled the ultimate runwithafriend fail, and rather than spring up an at ‘em, I texted Katherine attempting to get out of a run. Luckily, she is awesome. And agreed to postpone it until later in the afternoon when we both feeling a little more up for it.

I believe Katherine and I both deserve some epic pats on the back, because it’s really not easy to coordinate runs between two people who live on far opposite corners of Manhattan. We’re both a little crazy, and I was trying to squeeze in this weekends long run early and Katherine is upping her mileage base BEFORE she starts training for her marathon…in April. She is a nice running buddy to meet me for 10 miles when she really, really does not need to.

We finally met up around 1 p.m. at Engineer’s Gate (after I spent the morning continuing to clean and pack like a madwoman). The weather was–as it has been for a while now (knock on wood)–amazing. The perfect fall day, and the type of day I hope I wake up to on November 12th.

I felt a bit sluggish at first, but I believe thanks to spending the earlier part of the day dancing around the apartment in my compression socks and having company while running, I finally fell into a good stride. Katherine stayed with me through one and half 5-mile loops of the park and we distracted ourselves talking (as usual) running, blogging, life in NYC and (not always the usual) the wedding I’m attending this weekend

Circles around the park are much more fun when you continually pass by all of the lovely workers setting up bleachers and other necessities for the marathon in just a week and a half! I’m so excited I’m like a kid on Christmas morning, and I’m only spectating in this one!

excitement in the air or just noise from bleacher construction? all the same.

[Note: this photo was stolen from Shannon, who posted it on the NYC marathon FB page]

Funny enough, shortly after Katherine headed out of the park I bumped into none other than my new BFF Paul! This time we were running in opposite directions and [I believe] b0th nearing the ends of our respective runs, so we smiled and yelled some encouragement to one another and kept going. I can’t stress it enough, I love this city and all of its runners!

Since I’m still pretty sure Paul is far too busy of a business owner/father/marathoner/etc to ever read this blog, I do hope we’ll bump into each other again on a lunchtime run, because he is a nice man.

I headed out of the park after finishing my second loop and by the time I reached home had hit 12.65 about miles. I actually wanted to keep going because for the first time in a couple of days, I felt FANTASTIC. Holy wow, what a run! I felt refreshed and revived and ready to tackle more miles. But seeing how its taper-time and I still plan to knock out a few shorter runs over the weekend, I told myself that’ll do for today.

And while I was starving mid-run and have been plagued by taper hunger these days, I did not go home and pig out (get it? “that’ll do pig, that’ll do” okay. dumb babe reference). Instead, I feasted on a lunch of nuun (turns out it actually tastes okay if you only do a half tablet at a time) chased by a bowl of brussels, carrots and hummus (welcome back healthy Katie! your body has missed you) and some more water/nuun. Yum!

It’s on to tackle the to-do list and the day/stalk my email to see if I’ve been hired anywhere (fingers crossed).

Next time I talk to you, I’ll be running around Richmond (both in my sneaks and on wedding errands) gearing up for an awesome wedding weekend!

Happy hump day kids! Get jazzed about something today!

It Smells Like Thanksgiving

….in my apartment at least. I got my Izzie on last night and baked a big whopping batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies, courtesy of a recipe Kelly posted a few days ago. I guess since it’s almost October (what?! how did that happen) it’s okay that I’m finally inviting the fall into my home. And the aroma of fresh-baked pumpkin last night got me super pumped for Turkey Day in Richmond [read: the greatest/most anticipated time of the entire year].

I should go ahead and throw a giant thank-you to Kelly for the recipe, as the cookies are absolutely delish. But they are so delish that I can’t stop eating them. And I imagine training will only get harder as I lug around 434 extra pounds of pumpkin/chocolatey weight. My tum thanks you, Kelly, but my legs may feel differently.

The cookies proved to be decent fuel for an early morning run though! I met an old RB down near the river around 8 today (you may remember that my main RB moved to Brooklyn, and its been tough scheduling miles together since). This RB just returned from a summer of volunteer work in Africa. Where she taught adorable little kids and even climbed Kilimanjaro. And she was so busy out saving the world and climbing mountains that she had little time to keep up with her training for the ING NYC Marathon. Yet since she’s been back she’s already surpassed me in long-run mileage. Needless to say, she’s a badass in many, many ways. And she’s an angel for putting up with my slugness when we run together

We spent the morning sort of just looping up and down Riverside Dr. along the Hudson and playing catch-up…aka, I grilled her about Africa for the first half of the run then spent the second half picking her brain on thoughts surrounding grad school and different grad school programs. For those of you who don’t know (which is probably all of you), I’ve been toying with the idea of grad school for a looooong time now. But I’m more indecisive than a hungry fly at a picnic and cannot for the life of me decide what I want to go back for (granted, I have three general “areas” but they are all so different and far out of the others realms that in shouldnt even count to say I’ve narrowed it down that far), much less…where. And it seems there are just far too many options for a fickle-minded girl such as myself. (This is the point where all of you grad-school goers or grads shower me with wisdom and advice)

Anywho, as always, part of our convo also circled around running and where we are in our training. This RB is on marathon like 89 (ok, it may be closer to 10, but goodness, that’s still an insane amount of running), so I’m thrilled that she’s back and can answer all of my annoying omgimsoscaredofmyfirstmarathon questions. She seemed to agree with my decision to keep the run short today and possibly even take a full rest day tomorrow to ensure the success I want at Grete’s. So I wrapped things up after a little over 5 today, and hopefully will heed both her advice and my own hunch regarding tomorrows routine. (Thanks for all the tips, my 26.2 guru!)

Hopefully I can find other ways to be productive between now and my afternoon shift at NYRR. If you’re running this weekend, come get your bib and say hello!

Happy Thursday. And apparently Happy Coffee Day? The Twitterworld is telling me it’s National Coffee Day. Now that’s a holiday I can celebrate!  :)

-You saw this one coming….if you have ANY experience in grad school…pass on what you know! How do you decide what program is best for you? How do you begin the process? HELP!

- What’s your all-time favorite time of year/holiday? Thanksgiving blows the rest of the year out of the water for me.

on that time I ate 18 miles for breakfast….

Sometimes I think I must black out when I run. No, really…I do. One minute I’m stretching in the corrals before the gun at a race, and after just a few fuzzy memories of agony vs. tuning into my inner cheerleader, I’m somehow limping past the finish line chugging Gatorade. But in most cases–and especially today–I’m beaming on the inside as I slosh down some electrolyte grossness (note: for some reason I like gatorade…except for when it’s served before, during or after a run. weird, I know).

But as per usual…let’s back up a bit, to the beginning of the weekend.

Friday night I met my aunt, cousin and new friend Holly in midtown to go see Brandi Carlile perform at Town Hall (did you listen in all weekend as I recommended?). Traffic was HORRENDOUS all over the city with delays on the 1, 2 and 3 and cars at a standstill due to rain and rush hour. So by the time I finally made it to Penn to meet up with my posse for the evening, my decision to not drink has shifted a smidge. We grabbed a few drinks and appetizers at a nearby bar and headed in for Brandi.

She. was. amazing. Tingles my friends, tingles.

Afterwards we decided to keep the happiness of the night flowing by keeping the drinks flowing and stopped into yet another midtown bar (not necessarily a favorite neighborhood for a Friday night, but certainly convenient when friends need to hit the LIRR later), where we were met by the JD. Long story short, but we ended up coming home much later than anticipated, having had much more wine than needed.

So when I woke up for the 5th Avenue Mile on Saturday morning I was severely sleep deprived, and water deprived. But my $18 were paid and its a marathon qualifying race, so off I went. The run wasn’t so bad…it was, after all, just a mile–which is my “go-to” distance. It gets me through every run. I repeat the mantra “one more mile” in my head in whatever form necessary, and I’m no longer dragging (example: one more mile and this run is done, one more mile til the next big turn, one more mile and then there’s only a 5k left, etc. etc). So regardless of the fact that my pores were leaking wine instead of sweat, I laced up and powered through that mile run. And later found out I did so in 7:23. Not bad! But now I’m kicking myself wondering how much better that time would have been had I stuck to the original plan of no vino and mucho sleepo. Man, my spanish skills improve with age.

I spent the rest of Saturday more or less on the couch, catching up on the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy and wrapping all of the JD’s birthday presents. Then I suited up and went to training/work for the evening. Details on that later…maybe?

Now we’re getting to the good part of the post (thanks for sticking with me if you’re still reading)!

I got out of work super late and hurried home to down half a veggie burger and try to get my gear together for Sunday morning’s run. What run is that you ask? Oh, the NYRR 18-mile Tune Up Run. NBD.

I got to bed at the horribly late hour of midnight and was up again at 5:30 (with a wee little 2:30 a.m.interuption when the JD and his sis and friend who were visiting returned home from their night out on the town). I suppressed the little voice in my head that constantly chides me and tells me I’m not a runner, and snuck off to the kitchen to start downing some PB.

Completely having forgotten to stock up on some more honey stingers, the pre-run breakfast yesterday was a cinnamon nature valley bar topped with PB, and a few extra scoops of PB & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams…you know, just to be safe.

Not wanting to put my legs through any extra work before this run (a distance that Hal hadn’t had on schedule for a few more weeks), I took the sissy route to the start line. Aka, hopped on the subway for one stop (covering all of 7 blocks) before walking  east across the park to the 102nd st driveway where runners were lining up in the corrals.

Here is my second favorite part of the day: the emcee (I need to remember his name since he emcees like every NYRR race and is awesome) introduced the course–3 solid loops around the park, complete with 3 whole trips through the Harlem Hills–and told everyone out there that if they conquered this tune-up run, they could conquer anything. Three cycles through the nasty Harlem Hills would for sure prepare runners for the ING NYC Marathon, and definitely prepare runners on less intense courses [read: RICHMOND MARATHON]. With that thought in mind, the gun went off and we followed.

The first 6 miles were just okay–the weather was sticky and humid, which wasn’t so bad except I was expecting a chilly September morning and got the equivalent of a middle-of-July kind of day. But that’s par for the coure…it always takes the first few miles for the juices to get pumping.

Part of the reason I opted to run this a few weeks earlier than called for was to practice a long run with water stations. So around mile 5 or 6 I decided to take a few honey stinger chews and swig some water–so far so good. And by the time I hit mile 7 I was in my groove. If I’ve learned anything from this marathon training, it may be that I like–really like–the half marathon distance. I knew from the last couple of long runs that for miles 7-13 (maybe even longer), I’d be good to go. And I was.

Around mile 10 I forced myself to do some more fueling…by way of trying a Cliff Energy Gel for the first time, courtesy of NYRR. Unfortunately, I accidentally grabbed the “raspberry and cream” flavored one. And was definitelyyy not a huge fan of the taste, but consistency was much easier to work with while on the run than the Vanilla GUs I usually go for (too bad I have two full boxes to go through before I’ll allow a Cliff purchase).

After that, due to the icky mugginess of the morning I tried to make myself take in a lot more water, and probably picked up a cup at every other or every other few stops. Taking the advice from my RB, I even tried to walk through all of the “fluid” stations to get a little breather and conserve some energy.

I let that energy and a good chunk of excitement carry me over the last of the Harlem Hills (woohoo! I made it over HH 3 times, canttouchthis!) and down the west side of the park, but things started getting sluggish near Columbus Circle. My feet were in painnnn and there were snippets of time where I felt I was reliving that run from hell from a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I was having an Ali-like experience in which the “new” gel didn’t get along well with my tum, or chugging H20 was actually not in my bad interest, but I thought I might be sick a few times.

This is where I assume I blacked out. Because the next thing I knew I was powering up Cat Hill with everything I had in me, had another few minutes of fuzz and saw the finish line just around the corner. What? The finish line? But that would mean I ran 18 miles. 18! Omg, I did!

And there is my second favorite part of the day. I crossed the finish line with what I think/vaguely believe was a smile on my face. But I KNOW I was giddy on the inside.

Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to bask in the glory of running awesomeness, because there was a Mets game to get to. So I grabbed a half a bagel and a banana (neither of which I was really able to consume due to still feeling a little iffy in the tum) and walked back to the UWS. There was minimal stretching done (I’m definitely not happy or proud of this factoid and would have much preferred a very long ice bath with a coffee in hand) before hopping into a shower and onto the subway to meet up with the rest of the JDs fam and some friends for Citifield.

It was a beautiful day for baseball, followed by an awesome dinner out to celebrate my very old boyfriends birthday (he turns 27 TOMORROW). We went to Acqua where I inhaled every (and there were many) scrumptious carb in sight–this place is highly recommended. All in all, an epic weekend.

Covering those 18 miles was a HUGE confidence booster leading up to the marathon. And I think it even helped that the distance was a little longer than planned, because now I have a solid base of what my pace is like on a crucially long run (NYRR.org tells me 9:15…with those hills, I can dig it) and more time to try to improve it if I feel so inclined (not sure that I will). There’s still another 18 miler and a superultramegascary 20 miler on the schedule before The Big Day.

In the meantime, I’m going to spend the rest of today riding out the high that is 18 miles under my belt and toying with the idea of some easy form of cross training, but if the couch wants me for company, I may just give in…

- Did you do the 5th Ave Mile or TuneUp this weekend? How’d it go?

- Any recommends? During my run the two biggest issues plaguing my happiness were soreness on the balls of my feet (sorry if you don’t want to hear nasty runner details, but they burnnnned) and the feeling of maaaaybe wanting to vom a wee bit for the last 6 miles–was that brought on by the gel? too much water chugging?