The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

I finished my first ever 18 miler today! It actually ended being 18.41 miles because I had only done a estimated map before-hand and wanted to be sure that I got the full 18. I was definitely in a lot of pain and slowing down there in the last few miles, but all in all, I was feeling better today than during last week’s 12 miler (even with an almost 20 second faster per mile pace). I don’t know what gave my running this amazing surge this week, but whatever it was, thank you! The next three months are still going to be difficult and full of pain, but at least now I know that I have what it takes to get through them.

Not much else to report other than the fact that I registered for both the Queens Half-Marathon and Staten Island Half-Marathon this week. They happen to coincide with my training schedule perfectly and I’m really looking forward to them as tests of my progress. I’m going to get a few things done here around the house and then am headed over to my friend’s to watch the Olympic Men’s Marathon (and then laugh at how insignificant my accomplishment today seems compared to what they’re doing…)

I took advantage of the light mileage on my training schedule in the middle of this week to record some impressive speeds. Tuesday, coming off a nearly unbearable rest-day with a huge build-up of energy, I ran 5.4 miles at 6:57 pace. I expected that (and the beers and kraut-dog that I had at the Mets game that night) to slow me down for Wednesday, but not so. I came back and matched the pace exactly for four miles. I ate healthy yesterday and didn’t drink and even managed to get over seven hours of sleep. I woke up today feeling super-refreshed and completely pain free. Knowing that I have another rest day tomorrow, I decided to push the pace again today and see what I could come up with. I finished my 4.04 mile route along the East River in a personal best of 27 minutes and 7 seconds! That’s a 6:42 pace (just seconds off my best 5 mile race pace) and I ran it this afternoon in 80 degree heat and 50% humidity.

I’m loving the optimism and energy that these runs have given me going into this Saturday’s 18 miler. Hopefully it will be enough to carry me past the point where the logical side of my brain tells me that it’s time to quit.

I spent about an hour sitting on a bench and staring out over the East River today. I’ve been spending more and more time outside in various quiet (a relative term, here in Manhattan) places reading or, like today, just collecting my thoughts. Across the river from where I live is Wards Island, a tiny island populated by three giant buildings with gated windows and a little forest surrounding them. I’ve only been to the island once and did not enjoy my time there at all, but it is beautiful to look at from a distance. Today, as I was staring at the island a huge flock of birds caught my attention. Maybe sparrows, maybe finches, I don’t really know, it’s not important. They were small birds and there were what looked like thousands of them and they were flying in such a beautifully synchronized fashion that I couldn’t help but sit in silent fascination. And then I thought, how many times have I seen these same birds before and never noticed them? That thought stayed with me for a few minutes before being replaced by the realization that it didn’t really matter if I saw and appreciated the birds or not. True, I had never really noticed them before, but my noticing of them now didn’t change anything. They continued on with their collective twirls and somersaults as they always have and always will, never aware that they had a spectator.

It’s ironic/crazy/sad how quickly a source of happiness can turn into a source of pain. Even more so when you weren’t even expecting the happiness to begin with. How is it that I can miss something so badly now that I never even had? These last couple days have been rough. I keep thinking about what happened and what I should have done differently and why it all went wrong. It doesn’t even seem real, seem possible. And, to make things worse, yesterday was my short recovery day and today was my rest day and so at the exact time when I need running as a mental release most, it was unavailable to me. I went to the pool down on 114th Street and was going to try swimming laps, but it was too crowded and chaotic for me to deal with. I went across the street instead and read a book (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, in case you’re curious) that I had brought with me for a while, then went back to my house and did an enormous amount of push-ups. Of course, I quit doing any sort of upper body work about a month ago in an attempt to lose unnecessary weight before my marathon so I’m now unbelievably sore. And, after that, as I always do when I’m depressed, I compulsively cleaned my apartment, I shaved my head and face (yes, even the recent mustache) and a fair amount of my body, paced back and forth from the living room to my bedroom for a couple hours, became extremely productive at work while trying to distract myself, and finally, now, started drinking red wine and writing.

I turned on the Olympics a bit ago but it was boring me so I switched over to the Light Classical Music channel. In fact, I haven’t been watching nearly as much of the Olympics this week as I was last week. I think I reached my saturation point. There’s a few key events that I still am planning to watch — the women’s beach volleyball final on Thursday (Wednesday for us) as Sunday’s men’s marathon (Saturday evening for us) — but other than those, I’m pretty much over it. I think I just watched too much last week. I’m not used to sitting in front of the television that much and it was really starting to get to me.

Let’s see, what else is there to write about? Oh, this is interesting — I ordered a custom pair of running shoes today through NikeID. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, I switched over to the dark side and got a pair of Air Zoom Vomero 3’s. So far, I’ve been extremely happy with them. They’ve actually been better than the New Balance’s that I was running in before, plus now I get to use my Nike+. Anyway, I needed to get a second pair for my marathon training and Niketown on 57th was out of my size, so I went online and found that they have the Air Zoom Vomero 2 available on NikeID. I tried doing some research but couldn’t find anything relating to the difference between the 2 and the 3. I’m hoping that it’s negligible. I customized a pair of Nike Shox back when they first came out and loved those shoes. The ones I created today are equally as cool — They are all black and dark silver (to help them from looking so dirty — my shoes never stay clean), with dark blue swooshes and red text on the tongues: Philly on the right and 11.23.08 on the left. How cool is that? Or dorky? Pick your word. Either works. Of course, when I went to checkout I found that shipping was free for orders over $175 (awesome online sales move there) and so I went back and created a customized long-sleeve, red shirt that says eastcoastrunners on the front with a running shoe and has the number 13 on the back. Assuming that it fits well, that’s what I’ll be wearing to the big race.

I also decided that I’m going to run the half marathon in Queens on September 14th. It coincides with my training schedule almost perfectly, so I figure the early wakeup and $15 entry fee are well worth it to get some more quality long-distance race experience under my belt before November. I’m also considering the Fifth Avenue Mile, but haven’t decided for sure yet. It sounds like so much fun — I love running the mile, especially as a road race (the Pearl Street Mile in Boulder is one of my fondest memories, and my best mile time ever: 5:37) and I’m curious as to how fast I could run a mile now as it’s something I haven’t tried doing in a long time. The downside is that on the previous day, I have a 20 miler scheduled. So, my time on the mile would be understandably low, plus I’d run the risk of injuring myself by trying to do a near-sprint when I’ve been focusing on distance. I’ll know better after this upcoming Saturday’s 18 miler what to expect from my long runs.

How have I not talked about that 18 miler yet? It has been on the fore-front of my imagination (well, not quite the fore-front, but right behind that whole drama that I was so elusive about earlier) for quite some time. I am scared and excited all at the same time. It will be the longest run I’ve ever done and I have pretty much the same feelings going into it that I had about the NYC half — It’s like Christmas morning when you’re a little kid, except you know that you’re going to be in a lot of pain too. I’m excited that it’s going to be NYC Summer Streets again this weekend. That’s definitely an added bonus. This Saturday’s 12 miler with Antonio went really well. We ran slow (because of me, not him — I was totally slowing him down) but I finished stronger than I was expecting. I felt like I could have kept going if necessary. I would have definitely felt better, though, if I had some carbs somewhere around mile 10. That’s where I really felt myself running out of fuel. I’m going to look into getting some of those gel packs before this weekend. Running down Park Avenue was amazing. The Brooklyn Bridge was too crowded to be enjoyable, but the rest of the route was simply wonderful. I love the fact that the city took the initiative to make this happen. And, I wish they would take it even further by closing off more of the cross-streets so we wouldn’t have to stop so frequently.

That run made me decide to (for real now, even though I said I was doing so before) abandon all thoughts of qualifying for Boston this fall. I just want to finish the marathon running. Even if I run a 3:20 or a 3:30, I’ll still be happy. It will still be the goal that I set out to hit in 2001 and never accomplished. And, the added benefit of not qualifying for Boston is that I won’t have to run Boston — I really don’t plan on becoming a multi-marathoner. I just want to get Philly out of the way to satisfy some lingering ambitions that I’ve had. But after that’s, I’d rather go back and focus on 10K’s and 5K’s, and even the mile than continuing on with the distance running.

I’ve noticed that this is really turning into a running blog. I didn’t set out for it to be that, it’s just that running has been the most important part of my life lately. So, for any of you out there who are reading this and are bored by all the running crap, I apologize. It’s just something that you’re going to have to deal with until November, at least.

But, there have certainly been other things going on in my life. As I mentioned before, I’ve been diverting myself by staying as busy as possible. Yesterday, that included going out to dinner at the backyard garden of El Paso Taqueria with Parag. I love talking with doctors (and lawyers too, although he’s not one) and listening to all the shit that they have to go through on a daily basis and how little they get paid for it. Parag is in his second year of residency (which is like 10 years post high school) and is still being worked like a slave and getting paid about half what I make. Of course, it’s always good to just hang out and chat with Parag regardless of the fact that he’s a doctor. We shot the shit for a while and then I got on a rant about politics and economics (which I delivered surprisingly well — thank you, The Economist) and we considered going to go see a movie but decided not to instead.

Tomorrow, I am going out to Queens to see the Braves play the Mets with my old neighbor and her family. I wanted to take them up to a Yankees game but my ticket plan only has two seats and every set of 4 tickets we could find on StubHub was outlandishly expensive, so we decided to just go out and see the Mets instead. She’s always been a big Braves fan, so we decided to go while they’re up here so we can all root for the same team — her for the Braves, and me for whoever is playing the Mets.

Work’s about the same as always — just a little lighter than in months past. The fewer hours are a welcome relief. I was getting a bit burnt out there. The Flopalongs project is finally appearing to be near completion. And, I’m pretty much just doing small maintenance work on Mirabella now. Both the site and the ad campaign are set up and running smoothly. I have a mile long checklist on my own properties as always, but most of that is too fun to be called work.

My wrist has been killing me lately. It got so bad that I switched over to using the mouse with my left hand on Friday. I’m getting more and more skilled with moving the pointer around left-handed, but my left wrist is already starting to hurt too and my right is not really improving. I think some of it may be because I’m working on my dining room table (which is round) rather than a normal desk. Also, it could be because I am at my computer for ridiculously long amounts of time each day. And, with that in mind, let me call this quits.

If nothing else, it’s an amazingly fun word to say. Try it with me. Fartleks. Wasn’t that fun? As fun as that is, it’s not as fun as running them today was. I had the best run I’ve had in a really long time. I hadn’t intended to do anything out of the ordinary and, in fact, as I took my first few steps I was feeling pretty crappy — aches and pains all over. They were gone within a couple minutes, however, and then I started feeling pretty decent. I ran up to the end of the East River (near the Triborough bridge — 125th Street, I think) then turned around and headed back down. It was an uneventful run for the most part up to that point — I was running into a strong headwind and zoned out, my mind a million miles from the run at hand. As I turned around at 81st Street, I was still pretty much on auto-pilot when a guy coming from the stairs entered the path doing almost the same pace as me. We ran alongside each other for a little bit trying to figure out who was going to go first and when we got to the hill coming down out of the park, I decided to pass him and open up my stride, taking advantage of the hill. At this point, the wind was behind me and the slight burst of speed felt amazingly good. So I decided to run faster. I looked at my wristband and noted the time then took off at a near sprint. I kept it up for just under two minutes then went back to normal pace. The next speedy stretch was slightly slower but a minute longer. The next few, I wasn’t really even paying attention. I was just running for the sake of running. It felt so damn good. I felt like a kid out on the track. When I got back home and entered my time into my running log, I found that I had run the five and a half miles at a 6:56 pace!

You may have notice that it’s been a while since I’ve written. A lot of that is because I was out in California (photos) for almost a week and then, when I got back, playing catch up at work for the time that I’d missed. While out there, I was able to do some runs, including a wonderfully relaxed ten miler through the vineyards that border my cousin’s place in the Livermore Wine Valley. As much as I love running in NYC, it was great to get a break from the crowds of tourists and the heat and humidity. Instead of fighting through the hordes of Middle Americans waiting in line to see the Statue of Liberty, I had a beautiful little path all to myself — well, almost all to myself — I did pass a coyote and two deer. But, I guess we all have to share, right?  :)  Still, it’s good to be back in the city. I’m definitely looking forward to Summer Streets on Saturday (and so bummed that I didn’t know about it last Saturday.) I only have to do a 12 miler this week so I’ll actually get to enjoy it. Next week, the last of the three that the Summer Streets is running, I have an 18 miler scheduled and my legs are already hurting in anticipation.

I’ve been spending a bunch of time watching the Olympics too. I’m glad they only come around ever four years because they completely take over my calendar. I don’t really ever watch t.v. outside of Yankees games and football, but every day this week I’ve watched at least a few hours of the coverage. In fact, I have it on now and, frankly, the swimming is more interesting than writing this, so I’m going to switch chairs and kick back to enjoy the evening. Go USA!