Cowboy Hazel

This morning’s seven mile run in Central Park brought me to 132 miles for the month of July. Out of curiosity, I went back and checked my running logs and, sure enough, this month’s 132 miles is the most I have ever run in a month (the previous record was 129 in October 2001). That was a much-needed boost to my running confidence. My pace has been slowing and I’ve been having trouble keeping up with my friends on some of the tempo runs and intervals lately. But, looking at the numbers, I can see that what I’m losing in speed, I’m gaining in distance. And, I’m hoping that the speed will come back as I become more accustomed to the distance and continue to train.

My other running news is equipment related. I bought a pair of Nike Zoom Vomero 3’s yesterday along with the Nike+ chip and wristband to go with them. This is the first pair of non-New Balance running shoes that I’ve had in years and I felt like a bit of a traitor for buying them (my mom works for New Balance.) But, the simplicity of the Nike+ system and comfort of the shoe were so alluring that I had to have them, even if I do feel like a sellout now. I broke them in this morning with my run in the park and had no problems at all. If anything, my feet feel better than normal.

Other than that, there’s not much to report. Just work, work, work as always. I went out to the Yankees game Tuesday night and lost my voice cheering on the comeback that was dishearteningly close to succeeding and am headed out to California on Saturday for a family get-together. Seeing the fam will be good, although I’m dreading the flight. I’d keep writing but I really have nothing else interesting to say (and what I’ve said already isn’t even that interesting.)

“Half marathon. Full intensity. Love it!” TK from Pigtails Flying issued a challenge to come up with a six-word description of a recent race, and I felt mine from this morning would be a good place to start this entry. Let’s break it down, two words at a time:

A half marathon is still a long ass run. I was pretty wiped out when we got to the double digits and my thought as I crossed the finished line was, “Thank god it’s over, I don’t think I could do another 13.” Of course, this November, 13.1 will just be the half-way point. Today’s race pointed out how difficult getting ready to run the full marathon is going to be. At the same time, it was a good milestone. If I can finish a half marathon strong, what’s preventing me from finishing a whole one? (”Nothing” is the right answer, for those of you keeping score.)

Full intensity: I put everything I had into the preparation for today and then today during the race itself. I honestly don’t think I could have finished any faster than I did — 1 hour, 36 minutes, and 14 seconds. I paced myself well, stayed hydrated, and finished with a very strong last mile. I didn’t quite hit my goal, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Instead, it was because I am not yet at that level of performance as a runner. It’s good to know exactly what I’m capable of in longer distances now. As promised, I am going to forget about qualifying for Boston this year and instead simply focus on finishing the marathon intact. I don’t want to push too much and my body told me today that it’s not going to be ready to run a sub-3:10 marathon in four months.

Love it!: True, I didn’t run as fast as I wanted, but I still had a hell of a lot of fun. The weather couldn’t have been any better; it was raining as I walked down to the start from my house and then stopped just in time for the start of the race. It stayed cloudy and cool the whole time, though, and only started to rain again during the awards ceremony. The stretch of the run where we got out of the park and went down 7th Avenue through Times Square was amazing! I got such an adrenaline rush from the crowds and the noise and the lights that I flew threw that whole stretch (maybe a bit too fast even.) Then, at mile 12, still having enough gas in the tank to pick it up a notch and start running strong felt really good. Pacing has been my biggest struggle as a runner, so for me to be able to accelerate the last mile at the end of my first half-marathon was a huge personal victory. Finally, of course, there was the post-race. I met up with Antonio and a couple of his friends and we watched the awards ceremony before going to get brunch. It was a perfect end to an (almost) perfect morning.

After all is said and done, I really have no complaints. I came out and ran the best race that I could and now I just need to focus on what’s next. Philadelphia, ready or not, here I come!

I let almost two weeks slip by without a single word up here. I could just use the typical, “I’ve been busy,” excuse and not be lying (I’ve been putting in 80 hour work weeks and 30 mile running weeks still) but I wouldn’t being telling the full truth either. Fact is I’ve been slipping into a little bit of a funk lately and haven’t really felt like writing about it. That in itself is interesting because I used to always turn to writing in the same situations. But, you can’t really just open up here on a blog the same way that you can when you’re writing for yourself so there’s not that same cathartic release. And, my wrist has been hurting like hell lately so sitting in front of the computer any longer than I have to hasn’t been that appealing recently anyhow. But, rather than letting those excuses keep from writing yet another night, I decided to just buck up and pound the keys for a bit.

The biggest news in my life at the moment is the fact that the NYC Half Marathon is in less than ten hours from now! I’ve done everything I can to prepare myself — I’ve been running long runs, intervals, tempo runs, you name it; I quit eating any processed foods and quit drinking soda; I even gave up beer and wine this past week; and, toughest of all, I forced myself not to run yesterday or today so now I’m totally chomping at the bit and ready to run. I’m going to fix some pasta in a bit and then relax and watch a movie and (hopefully) get a few hours of solid sleep. Yet, even with all this, I feel really nervous about the race, more nervous then I’ve ever been about any other. What if I fuck up tomorrow? What if I overpace myself early and then can’t finish? What if I just run out of steam at mile 10 like I’ve been doing lately? Tomorrow is a huge benchmark on my progression as a runner and will determine how I tackle training for Philly. If I am able to hit my target of 1:35:00 then I can realistically start thinking about preparing for a Boston-qualifying marathon time. If not, it will be a sign that I need to take a step back and just worry about finishing the marathon this fall and wait until next year to try to qualify for Boston. I really don’t know which it will be. I’ve never run this far at 100% intensity before. And, to point out the obvious, I’m curious to learn what the result of doing so will be.

I switched gears there between paragraphs pretty abruptly. I suppose I should go back and explain the funk rather than just leaving it out there. It’s not a depression or anything, just this cloud that has been hanging over my head lately. I don’t know, it just seems like no matter how hard I try, nothing is really improving. A lot of this is financial. Because of way the taxes hit me and the fact that I don’t qualify for any of the government assisted health, rent, or food programs that my taxes are going to pay, I’m really not making any more money than I would be if I just gave up and took a $20,000 a year job. Of course, this is something that has bothered me for a long time (I plan on writing a book about it and the ways to fix it someday when I can sit down and give the research the time and attention it deserves) but recent events have brought it to the forefront of my mind. I’ll hold off on the details for now, because I know that if I start down that path, I won’t be able to stop and the last thing I need is to spend hours here writing in frustration on the eve of the biggest race so far in my running life.

So instead, I’m going to go make myself some pasta and watch a movie. I haven’t decided yet between Magnolia and Alien 3. Strange choice there. Strange enough, in fact, that I felt it was worth mentioning.

This will be a quick entry as I am still completely overwhelmed with work.  In fact, I really shouldn’t even be writing here now.  I’m totally using this as a method of procrastination.  It’s 2:00 Sunday afternoon and I still haven’t begun the work that I had planned to start on Friday evening.  Yikes!  So, you ask, what I have been doing instead?  Let me tell you…

I ran the Park to Park 10K this morning, but as a training run and not as a race — I was coming off a 10 mile run yesterday (which was part of an almost 40 mile week of running) and so my legs were understandably fatigued.  I decided earlier in the week that getting a long run in this weekend was more important than doing well on the 10K since my half-marathon is coming up in just two weeks.  So I decided to do 12 yesterday and then just an easy 6 today.  Unfortunately, my long run yesterday didn’t end up as long as planned — Instead of 12 miles, I only did 10.  I was suffering from some really bad cramps in my right quad and left calf — I think I may have been dehydrated a bit.  Considering that, I had really low expectations for today.  But, today’s run went better than expected.  I was able to start slow and steady like I wanted to and maintained a super-consistent pace throughout the 6 miles.  I ended up at 43:44, which normally would have disappointed me, but today I was very happy with it.  I started the race with Antonio (who did the 10 with me yesterday and was also going to take it slow today) but he quickly ran ahead of me and finished in 40:05.  I saw Sarah and met family at the start of the race too.  As always, it was nice to see familiar faces out at the race.  The course was awesome — We started up at 102nd Street on the east side so I was able to just walk down from my house instead of having to deal with the subway and then we went counter-clockwise and got the big nasty hill out of the way quick.  That’s always a plus.

Well, as I mentioned, I have almost 40 miles in for the week.  I’m actually worried that it might be a little much.  I feel like my body is slowing down and fighting me a lot.  The thing is, I’m not sure whether it’s because of the increase in mileage or because of the heat.  Probably, it’s a combination of both.  But, either way, I’m worried about my upcoming half-marathon.  I have run into serious troubles on all my long runs lately and haven’t been able to get much past 10 miles.  I’m hitting this wall of fatigue right there.  That certainly doesn’t bring the level of confidence that I’d like to have going into such an important race.

Yesterday was the start of my twenty-sixth year of life.  Although I wasn’t at all happy about turning 25, the day itself was at least good.  I went out to Queens and saw the Rockies play the Mets with Sareeka (photos).  I’d never been out to Shea Stadium before and figured that I should do that before they tear it down.  Plus, I figured the Rockies could use all the support they could get out here in hostile territory.  Unfortunately, my support wasn’t enough — they still lost 3-0.  Regardless, we had a fun time at the game and then went and wandered around Queens a bit.  I’ve never been there before (except driving through on my way to and from LaGuardia) so it was kinda cool to see some new territory.  We ended up eating at a diner and I got this huge waffle with ice cream and whipped cream and sprinkles.  I very rarely eat sweets, so that was a huge shock to my system and I actually felt rather ill for the rest of the night, but it was totally worth it because it tasted so good.  We found a sidewalk book seller too and I came home with a huge armful of books.  My bookshelves are both filled to the brim now.  I’m going to have to figure out where to start putting new ones.  Maybe I’ll have to buy another shelf.

Well, off to work for real now.  I need to put a couple finishing touches on the Mirabella at La Reserve website and then I’m going to be doing still more work on the Flopalongs.  I’m so anxious to get those projects wrapped up so I can get back to working on my own sites.  I feel like I’ve been neglecting them.

Look at me procrastinating again…  For real, this is the end.  Good bye.