acclimating

With great, yet late nites on friday and saturday...I knew morning runs were not on the agenda this weekend :). But that's quite alright...gotta continue my efforts to get used to the heat...I mean the method to my madness worked last year, right?

Lucky 13 great miles on the west side hwy yesterday...and I swear I am liking these Brooks Defyances more and more every time I wear them. If I were to keep with the dating theme...its like the guy that you just take a chance on...and it works for you better than you ever expected. Getting away from that, I just think I may have found my perfect shoe for MCM!

Followed that up with some easy, shady bridle path miles today to get me to 30 this week! With the exception of next week ("tapering" for the Mini 10K)-i hope to keep that up until its go time on June 22nd...

In other news, I discovered that no taxicabs like going from the UES to the UWS at around 5 pm on a saturday. That damn east side-west side rivalry I guess. Well cabbies, no fare for you. :-P

And I am writing this post on my latest tech toy...ditched the Treo and picked up a brand-spanking new BlackBerry Curve-and already I can say its a huge upgrade.

And closing out the weekend by helping a certain crazy bandanahead celebrate his b-day... ;-)

a learning experience

Blame it on the Goose, gotcha feeling loose
Blame it on the 'tron, catch me in a zone
Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol
Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol

The song lyrics above can pretty much sum up my 5K race from Monday :)

Yeah, I ran a 10K PR while powered by blueberry ale...and finally ran under 30 minutes for a 4-miler fueled by red wine...but dammit, I guess I have reason to believe those were flukes :) (or for all I know, I could have run even better!) So moral of the story-if you want to run a good race, do not spend the day before at the Yankee game, with lotsa beer consumption (though it was great to see the new stadium!) and the day before that at a BBQ with lotsa wine and beer consumption and even a post-party drink. Not to mention eating like crap both days. Don't get me wrong, those were fun, fun days :) But a good race they do not make...

So anyway, as the race was the next town over from the parentals, I crashed there the night before. But that wasn't completely stress-free, of course we had to figure out how to get there with the roads being closed for the 10K race that was starting an hour and a half earlier! Turned out to be for naught, got there in plenty of time. Good, I can get in a good warmup of a couple of miles. Was dressed for success in my brand-spankin' new Nike red Flyers singlet. Feeling loose, feeling confident. Though it was getting hot...even just standing around. Thank god I opted for the shorter distance today...right? Finally, it was almost time to start...and how psyched was I to see chip mats at the start line? Yeah! Ready to go...

Mile 1 (7:20)-nice and flat, and thankfully shady. Hit the mile marker pretty much exactly where I wanted to be. Though if Mr. Garmin's data is to be believed, apparently I did the first half-mile at just over 7-flat pace??
Mile 2 (7:52)-maybe I was paying for the fast-ish start here. This mile was a little hillier (though child's play compared to Central Park). I was surprised that the mile was so slow...I thought I was working hard...
Mile 3.1 (8:17-7:31 pace)-by then it was getting hot, and I was glad it was almost over, just suck it up for a mile and change. good thing about this being a quasi-hometown race is that I can recognize certain landmarks and know where I was...and after making the final turn I totally knew where I was and knew it was a straight (and a tiny downhill!) shot to the finish.

Final time-23:29, 7:34 pace, 9th in my age group (I wasn't expecting to place high, this race was really stacked!)

It's weird, I feel like this race was anticlimactic in a way. Based on my heart rate data, I was nowhere near where I should be in a 5k in terms of effort, and I really didn't feel like I gave it my all. In a way, however, this was really a no pressure race for me, and if I took some learning away from it...well so be it :) And additionally-I'm not blaming the weather, but it didn't help matters. I remember feeling at the end that I was so glad I opted for the shorter distance, and I heard quite a few calls from the announcer for "medical attention at the finish line"...in a way, I was just happy to have finished upright.

So-2 things I took away from this race:

1. I really need to work on my pacing in 5Ks-I feel like it's the one distance I just can't get down with regards to pacing. Specifically, don't lose my nerve during mile 2.
2. No all-day drinkfests the day or 2 before an A race. (1 glass of wine should be my limit. Should.)

and speaking of passing guys...

wow, another week has gone by and no posts...busy week for me. thank god for the holiday weekend...boy oh boy, do i need it.

but i couldn't resist blogging about something amusing at this past week's speed workout. i actually did wear my "some girls chase boys..." singlet again, hey what can i say, I like it :) But wouldn't I know it, this idiot guy shows up for the speed workout...who hates finishing behind women-even if they are legitimately faster. Always used to try and race me in workouts-and even in the Underwear Run too (which was supposed to be an easy, "fun run", mind you.) And wouldn't you know it, same thing happens this time...either sprinting to try and get ahead and then fading...or even cutting the course!! Lame. (And just distracting when I am trying to "run my own workout.") No etiquette, I tell you!!

But as for me, I actually had a pretty good workout!! I guess the determination of not letting the idiot "beat" me...in addition to wanting to live up to the attitude that I showed on my singlet...wound up with a pretty fast workout (for me)...which won good feedback from the coach too :) The observation was that I was working hard but still looking good doing it, keeping the form well...was encouraging for me (thx again JS!) After all, if I'm gonna get that BQ this fall, I'm gonna have to learn to push the envelope ever so often...

But between this workout and my recent 10K race-does this mean I need a guy to stay ahead of, to push me to run just a little harder when it counts? :) Or maybe just a rabbit in general? I'll be racing a 5K in NJ this Memorial Day, let's see if that is gonna come into play yet again. Just gonna be a fun race, to see where I'm at with the Mini 10K being 2 weeks away-that one being the race where I'd love to post a good time. And no, I'm not freaking out about the weather for the Mini just yet :)

And happy holiday weekend...which for me will be filled with friends, baseball, running...and did I mention 3-day weekend??? Can't get better than that (well unless it was a 4-day weekend. or more.)

best drinking game. ever.

I've played my fair share of drinking games in the past...in my college years...oh I remember my personal favorite, "asshole"...many a friday happy hour was spent playing several rounds of that. And I also can't forget the time me and a few others were watching Ace Ventura...and the game was to do shots every time Jim Carrey said "alrighty then!" you can guess how that turned out for me :)

but none can compare to my new favorite drinking game, the "marathon" drinking game. Watching a lecture about a marathon? Watching one on TV? Just drink every time you hear the following words:
marathon
run
race
pace
mile
inspirational

I'm sure there were others but can't remember right now...guess my mind was a little fuzzy or something. Wonder why. But anyone can feel free to add words to the list-the more the merrier, right?

try this drinking game, you'll like it! After all, it is endorsed by me...and a few other troublemakers :-)

some girls chase boys. i pass 'em.

What's the title have to do with this post? Well some of you may remember that I got a running singlet with that saying on it at the Cherry Blossom Expo. And I wore it on my run this past Sunday, and the barista at Starbucks where I stopped after the run asked if that was true. Thinking back to my race the day before, I said "yes!" But let me back up a little bit here...

So I ran a 10K outside of Central Park this past weekend. I was pretty UTR about it, since last time I talked up a race, I wound up running not as well as I would have liked. So I kinda kept quiet about this one...

Well the day of, I awoke early to torrential pouring rain...and prayed that it would stop soon. I didn't care if it were still raining while I was in transit, just not during the race itself :) Luckily, it did stop by the time I left, but it was so damn humid. Thank god it was somewhat cool out though!! Me and JS took the subway down from the UWS to the Path train to get to Jersey City...and oh boy was that an adventure!! First off, the Path is so damn confusing in the off-hours! There will be a train heading towards NJ on the "uptown to 33rd st" track...I think you know where this was going. Quite a few, including yours truly was fooled!! But that's ok, there was plenty of time. Oh but wait a minute!! Once the train got to Hoboken (read: only one stop away, less than 5 minutes from our destination), there was announcements that the train would be delayed. After a few minutes of fretting, it was time to find a Plan B...run and use as our warmup? Cab it? In the end, we cabbed it-the $$ spent was worth it to not be sitting on the train, checking our watches and stressing. And as it turned out...even though we got there with less than our desired hour to spare, we still had enough time to get our bibs, chips and techy shirts(!), make some final pre-race preparations, and get in a little warmup before lining up.

Saw Flyers PN and CN at the start (who just ran a marathon the previous weekend or something?) and lined up near them, a fair few rows back...in front of me, saw all the top NYC teams...gunning for that prize money, methinks?? The start was very low-key...announcements were very faint, but then I heard "on your marks" and then the starting gun. My hope for today was to go under 47 minutes...or at the very least, have a time of 47:xx!! Let's see what the day will bring...

Mile 1 (7:49)-I tried to be careful and conservative here, since I was afraid that the combination of flat road, fast runners and absence of crowds would suck me out too fast. I saw PN go ahead of me in the 2nd half of this mile...hmmm, I can usually beat him!! I'll catch him later...
Mile 2 (7:54)-this mile had the only hill of the race. OK, it was really an overpass, and wasn't a bitch like Cat Hill, but still :) I looked at this mile split and had a feeling that sub-47 wouldn't be happening today. Just keep going...
Mile 3 (7:43)-Enter Annoying Overdressed Guy. This guy was wearing long pants, a yellow running turtleneck, and had his music up so loud that I could hear it. And it was the same 2 songs over and over again!! (I like Lady GaGa as much as the next person, but there are only so many times I can hear "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" in a span of 50 minutes.) And he kept spitting like every single minute. AND he was acting like my friggin shadow-constantly running shoulder to shoulder with me...every time I tried to surge a little, he had to do the same....I just wanted to shout "just f*cking pass me already!!" But I hoped that sooner or later I could shake him. I saw PN late in this mile and passed by with us saying mutual "good jobs" to each other.
Mile 4 (7:47)-2nd half of the race, I try and pick it up a little bit. Annoying Guy won't friggin go away. And because he's running so damn close to me, bumps my elbow when going around a fast turn. Annoying. But the good thng is that I'm passing runner after runner...mostly guys :-P I tried to do some quick math at the end of this mile...hmmm, looks like my time just may wind up being in the 48s? Unless I run a big negative split....
Mile 5 (7:37)-last 2 miles, get to work!! Still passing lotsa people and feeling kinda cool doing so. But Annoying Guy STILL won't go away!! He stops at the water stations, I don't, I hope I could lose him here...dammit.
Miles 6/last .2 (7:47/1:14)-Down by the water, the home stretch. Give it all you got. Lotsa guys for me to pass, but I also see a coupla women in striking contention...the mind game I played with myself is to pretend that they were in my age group...you get what i'm saying ;-) I caught up to and passed one, but couldn't seem to close on the other. But the best part? Midway through the mile, I FINALLY dropped Annoying Guy!! Did not see him at all for the last half-mile or so of the race. Turn onto the final straightaway...man, this is going on forever!! JS is cheering at the mile 6 marker..."kick it in, only a minute and a half left!" Made the final turn to the finish...wait a minute, are my eyes deceiving me?? Is that clock still in the 47's? Hells YEAH!!! Guess that 6-minute pace last .2 helped out big time :-P (which I think was short and mile 6 was long.)

And the bottom line is-47:51, 7:42 pace...missed a PR by 45 seconds, but this is still my 3rd best 10K time ever so i was pleased. Especially since I wasn't sure in the early going that 47:xx was possible!!

Shortly after I crossed, another guy who finished a few seconds behind thanked me, apparently he was sorta pacing off me. And Annoying Guy did the same a few minutes later (he finished a minute behind me...did he like, bonk or something in mile 6? How did he go from being right on my tail to being a minute behind?) Man, everyone was trying to use me as a rabbit today...guess I looked like I knew what I was doing or something :)

So JS and I stuck around for the best part-the post-race beer (they had Corona!! pretty cool)...and I was a little anxious to see the results, as last year, 3rd female 30-34 ran 50 minutes and change, so maybe there was a chance...oh, but when the age group awards were being announced, they totally skipped over females 30-34!! I thought I was imagining it, and they got all the way up to the 60s before they realized "oh yeah, we missed an entire age group" In the end, it didn't matter anyway, as I turned out to be 8th AG...man, the field got a lot more competitive this year!! Some more beer to drown our....uh, my sorrows, and a return trip that was thankfully drama-free :)

As for the race-even though it wasn't a PR time, I was still happy with the performance...especially considering the following:

I had done a track workout Wednesday, and probably didn't hold back as much as I should have.
It was pretty damn humid, and it does affect me when I'm not acclimated.
My weekly mileage was been in the high 20s...realistically, I can't expect to be running my best times off of that.

On the other hand, it felt great to be passing tons of runners in the second half, which meant that I ran a pretty smart race...and even though I thought a certain time may have been out of contention, I never gave up...I think this is one of those times where the finishing time doesn't tell the whole story. Which is why I like writing race reports! :)

All in all, a fun day...one I knew would make for an entertaining blog post/race report :) And what's next? I am signed up for the infamous Mini 10K and hoping that Mother Nature will cut us a bit of slack after the More "fun run" scorcher. Besides that? Working on building my base...come June 22nd, it's game on. Got lotsa work to do for a certain little race in October...

"fun run" vs. "fun" run

Ahhhh what a difference 20-something degrees can make:
last Sunday-80-something degree hilly 13.1 mile "fun run"=torture.
yesterday-60 degree flat 11 mile "fun" run=awesome.

the unseasonable heat finally broke later in the week, however bringing rain with it. yesterday I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get a long run in...however after sleeping off my share of martini consumption from the previous night, I saw a window where I could get my run in and just went for it.

And what a 180 it was from the previous weekend...where I was struggling to maintain 9:15-9:30s. Maybe it was the cool weather, maybe it was the flat surface of the West Side Highway path, maybe it was the music on the iPod, maybe it was the bouncy new-shoe feel of my last pair of Cumulus 9's on their 3rd run, but I was just clicking off very consistent 8:4x miles for the bulk of the run, without really pushing at all...just felt very smooth. Don't plan on this being a habit...but hey I'll take a good run where I can get it. Running can be heartbreaking like that, I don't know if my next run will repeat the torture of last weekend or something like that...

And on the topic of last weekend's "fun run"...there was lotsa heated discussion about that during the week...which included, but was not limited to...
If it was co-ed, would it still have been canceled? Uh...anyone remember Chicago 2007? (not to mention all the snowy, icy co-ed NYRR races that were made into fun runs...even distances as short as 4 miles!)
There was no notice...ok, I'll give em that. As I said before, I think that as soon as the heat advisories went up, there should have been some notice that there could be heat-related adjustments to the race...live and learn.
NYRR should give them spots in the NYC marathon to "make up" for it...um...apples and oranges there.
Bottom line was that this was a "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't situation" for NYRR. Yeah, there were (understandably) a lot of upset women-but I'm sure that if the show still went on and if, god forbid, a runner died or something else due to the heat-NYRR would have been chastized for not making it a fun run. Hindsight is always 20/20....

Changing the topic a little-I got new shoes yesterday!! The Brooks Defyance 2, which will hopefully, hopefully be the perfect replacement for my beloved Asics Cumulus 9s...as I am on my last pair and both the 10s and the brand-spankin' new 11's are a no-go. (Anyone else feel that Asics have made the heel units on their trainers a little too...busy or something?) With MCM training starting near the end of June, I want to get the shoe situation squared away long before then. And I give a big thumbs-up to the new JackRabbit store on the Upper East Side...the person who helped me was great, helped me try on several pairs and come to an educated decision...was between the Defyance and the Mizuno Wave Rider 12s, but the Brooks just won out by a hair (was that close!) Now I just need a dry day this week to try out the new shoes on the road....