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Gigantic New York City Rat

This guy pops up around town every so often. It's the Strike Rat. He shows up whenever there is a union going on strike. Mobile post sent by BrooklynBeast using Utterz.  Replies.

Cupcakes from Crumbs Bakery - Carbo Loading

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Manhattan Half Marathon – 2008

For today’s Manhattan Half Marathon, I decided to get to Central Park by way of running from Brooklyn. The race started at 8:30am so I needed to get an early start if I was going to make it on time. As usual, it took me forever to get ready and I made it out the door with not much time to spare. I wound up walking in and out of my house a few times before I actually got going, because I couldn’t decide how much clothes to wear. It was pretty cold and I wanted to make sure I had enough clothes since in essence I was doing a journey run; that is I was running away from my house and I would only have the things I was willing to carry with me. As usual I headed down Flatbush Avenue. This led me past Junior’s Restaurant a veritable Brooklyn Institution. I recently sent a cheesecake from there to a friend in California who returned the favor by sending me a couple of bottles of wine that he makes himself. It promises to be a fair and equitable exchange. I had no time to fuel up on cheesecake though and I kept heading for the Manhattan Bridge. It was an overcast day, cold and crisp and the air had the smell of snow; a perfect winter running day. I know I didn’t have time for it, but I decided to snap a picture while crossing the Manhattan Bridge. I told a friend I would send photos via my phone as I made my progress into the city. Once over the Manhattan Bridge, I made my way up the Bowery, past where the famous Punk Rock club CBGB’s used to be. I felt like stopping and taking more pictures as my journey progressed, but I realized I was not going to have enough time to make it to the race start. When I ran up 23rd Street, about 6.5 miles into my run, I decided I better take a cab if I was going to make it on time. I cabbed it up to the NYRR’s club on 89th, got my race number and then ran back down to the race start. This gave me 7 miles of running before the race. I had a minute to snap a picture in the crowd before the race began and then put my camera phone away as the race was about to begin. I wish I could say that I felt all warmed up and great and ran with the grace and ease of a gazelle. In actuality, my legs felt sluggish and slightly painful. I keep waiting for my legs to feel good again and for me to run with ease. It just feels like it has been so long since the last time I ran freely and easily. At one point I just felt like dropping out. I couldn’t do that though as I thought of those waiting and expecting me to cross the finish line. I wasn’t injured and I wasn’t sick, so I carried on. I relied on the many mental tricks I have to get through the race. Pushing through the pain is such a mental game. Getting yourself to go on when you don’t feel as though you can, takes mental toughness and fortitude. Yes there can be such exquisite pleasure in pain, knowing that you got yourself to that point, but able to keep moving on. What do you do though when you think you can’t go on? How do you push yourself to keep going at that point? What happens when the mental tricks used up and you are down to your bare soul? I never want to get to the point where I have nothing left in my bag of tricks and I give up. It would leave a bad taste it my mouth. Getting to that point would mean that I will quit. I need to load my mind with the ammunition it needs to push me through the darkest and toughest times. I am always looking at the example of others to learn how they are able to push through difficult circumstances. By reading about the experiences of others, I can draw on their examples to help me carry on. My mind is open to learning from the experiences of many a varied source; from the descriptions of racing from Steve Prefontaine, to the family that deals with tragedy or impossible circumstances to the sexual deviant who completely devotes themselves to a master or mistress. There is a never ending supply of people pushing through pain and difficulty to draw upon, that would make pushing through a simple running race look like a piece of cake. It’s like, if they can do that, I can certainly run these next few miles. So in any event I persevered through the race. I even started to feel better as I reached miles 11 and 12 of the race (about 18/19 miles total running) and was able to increase my pace towards the end. I ran 20 miles total for the day and I was happy to finish even though I set a PW (Personal Worst – 1:57:26) for the half marathon distance. That’s ok. I am not going for speed these days, I am going for distance. Slow and steady will get me to my destination.

TwitterSwap Rules

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Pancakes in the Morning

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T-Bone and a Guinness at Rothman's

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Walk in the Park

This hasn’t been the best week of training for me and I am feeling out of sorts. Honestly, I feel like I am hardly doing anything ever since I started to train for the VT100. I am following my coaches training plan, but the schedule is light compared to what I was doing when I was training for Ironman. I think I am going to have to tell him to give me some more workouts just so I can keep my body in even balance. I am craving the workload and don’t feel right without it. To top it off, I haven’t been able to get to the gym at lunch to do strength training. I can feel my muscles atrophying and withering away. I keep bringing my workout clothes to work in the hopes that I will be able to go. I suppose it doesn’t help that I took a day off from training this week. I decided on Wednesday that I was going to blow off my swim workout. I kind of felt like I needed a mental break. Usually when I feel like this, I call my coach who almost always tells me to go ahead and try to do something, even though I don’t feel like it. This time though he told me not to worry about it, since it was just a swim workout which is being used strictly for recovery. At that moment I was relieved and glad to be able to just go home. As it turned out however, I got a phone call at exactly 5:30pm which caused me to stay late. I would have missed my swim workout anyway. Call it providence that this workout wasn’t meant to be. Since I took a day off I Wednesday, I was hoping for a good run Thursday morning. This was not to be. My shins were very achy and my body just didn’t feel like running. I absolutely hate when that happens. As usual I was the further distance into my run away from home when I knew I was going to have to slow down and walk. I know that sometimes this just happens. I try not to get upset over it as there is nothing I can really do. Sometimes my body just doesn’t want to run. I consoled myself with the fact that later that morning I was going to see a doctor that would give me cortisone shots in my painful shins. I looked forward to getting some relief to this nasty chronic condition and trying for another run in the evening. The cortisone shots are painless. I took a couple of pictures of the needle being inserted into my leg for your viewing pleasure. As I left the office, I could feel the warmth of the cortisone spreading along the tissues. I looked forward to running later that evening. I got home from work early for a change, relaxed a bit and then got dressed in my running clothes. I was eager to try out my new cortisone filled legs. While the pain wasn’t completely gone, the discomfit was greatly diminished. I ran a decent 4 miles around Prospect Park, so that combined with the mileage from this morning gave me 8 miles on the day. I didn’t feel like I ran 8 miles and I was tempted to do 8 alone in the evening, but I tempered myself and listened to my coach who told me not to push it too hard. It wasn’t just the cortisone that made this runs better, it’s just that sometimes I don’t have it in the morning, but I do later in the day. I guess it’s my body warming up and waking up as the day moved on. Today was another light workout day as far as I am concerned. Just a one hour spin on my bike which I did in my basement while watching TV. It was nothing special and really not even worth writing about; so I won’t. This weekend will be a real test to see how my legs are doing. I am running 6 on Saturday, but on Sunday I am doing the Manhattan Half Marathon, which I will warm up for by running to Central Park from my house in Brooklyn. This should give me around 20 miles for the day. If I am going to have any shot at the VT100, I am going to need to start banging out 20 milers like they are a walk in the park.

Cortisone Shot

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I’m Basically Lazy

Despite the fact that I work out as much as I can, I think of myself as a lazy person. I don’t do things I should do or maybe I just procrastinate a very long time. It has been my philosophy that if you wait long enough, the things you are supposed to do that don’t get done will eventually not matter anymore anyway. If that’s the case, why waste your time on things that don’t need a good getting done? Well, that’s not really true. Many things matter, the key is just deciding on what those things really are. This morning I considered myself to be very lazy. I woke up around 2am with a headache, took a couple of Excedrin and then couldn’t fall back to sleep. I chatted online for a while and debated going out for a run right then and there. I even went so far as to getting dressed; two layers of tights, several winter running shirts and socks. I debated whether or not I should go out then or go back to bed. I eventually decided to be lazy and went back to sleep. I would have been much better off going out for the run. When I went back to bed, I slept with all the slumber of a soldier catching some z’s on the battlefield. Basically, I didn’t sleep at all. I just lay in bed until 5am when I finally had enough and went outside. At least I was already dressed for the run. I went out with the intention of running 8 miles, but bumped into a friend just as I was coming onto my 7th mile. I decided to hang with him for a while, as I hadn’t seen him in quite some time and wound up doing 10 miles. That’s when I got lazy again – around my 10th mile… As I exited the park I was coming onto 9.5 miles and I couldn’t leave it at that. I needed to round off the number at 10. However, I also needed to go to the store to pick up some soy milk and I didn’t want to finish the 10 and then have to walk back to the store. So rather than walking back there, I just bought a half gallon of milk and ran with it like a football for the last half mile, timing the ending to be right at my doorstep. It was better to carry it, than have to walk around the corner after I finished running. So anyway after I walked in the door and refueled, the only thing in the world I wanted to do was to go back to sleep. Had I not been lazy and went at 2am, I would have been back in plenty of time to get a few more hours of sleep; sleep that would have been a lot more sound than the 3 hours I managed to get between 2-5am. I won’t make that mistake again. Next time I wake up and feel like running, I am going to go.

Full Moon Run

I really couldn’t sleep Saturday night. I finally feel asleep around 12:30am after sucking on an Ambien, but I woke up again at around 3:30am. So I went downstairs and had a bowl of cereal and decided that I may as well go for a run. My moving around woke up my wife so I told her my plans of going outside for a run. She thought I was insane and didn’t want me to go outside for fear that something would happen to me. I told her to make me a better offer than a middle of the night run. She offered up our basement treadmill as a viable alternative; that was not the offer I was hoping to hear so my middle of the night outdoor run became even more appealing. I wasn’t sure where I was going to run. I thought maybe I’d stick to the sidewalks so at least I could be seen from the streets. I ran down to Grand Army Plaza and stopped to take a photo and make an Utterz to memorialize this event. I decided from there to go into Prospect Park. I’ve never had trouble at this time of night and figured I’d be better able to see someone coming from afar. It would be more deserted, but I felt safer inside the park. I think I enjoyed this run more than any other run so far this year. I love the feeling of being outdoors in the middle of a January winter’s night, with the wind howling, leaves rustling and strange sounds emanating from everywhere. I felt like I was walking on the moon. It doesn’t matter how slowly or fast I run when I achieve this sort of feeling. I just love being outside with the world seemingly all to myself. The only company I had for the hour and ten minutes I was outside were rustling leaves and a solitary rat. Normally when I am outdoors at times like this, I have music pumping into my ears. Unfortunately, the battery on my Ipod Shuffle decided to die soon once I entered the park. I normally like to seal off my senses from as much of the environment as possible to complete that spaceman on the moon feeling, but with the battery dead, I entertained myself to the sounds of the world instead. It at times got a little creepy. I would suddenly hear something rustling right next to me and I would get a start that it was some nefarious person out to do me harm. You hear so many different sounds at night when the world is still; sounds that are masked during the day. My running felt very sublime. I was tired, but awake, running, but moving slow and I felt completely at peace with the world. Doing this run on so little sleep was a big confidence booster that I will be able to make it through the night at the VT100. I think I could have run all night long, but I knew I needed to get back home and try to get some sleep before the day began. I wanted to be awake to watch the football games later on TV. I settled on doing just 6 miles. I let my course through the park meander a bit and I exited at a place that I don’t normally exit and enter the park. Doing so was divine providence. I had a clear view down a long street with the most fantastic full moon I’ve ever seen in my life. The moon was at the extreme western edge of the horizon and the sun which was still well below the eastern horizon was shining on it with a brilliant orange glow. It was the biggest full moon disk I’ve ever seen and I stopped me in my tracks. I stood in the middle of the road and stared in awe at this fiery looking orb for about 10 minutes. I am lucky the police didn’t come by or I would have been carted off to Bellevue Hospital. I tried in vain to get a good picture of it with my camera phone, but the street lamps would sort have wash out the effect of the moon. I felt like going into my house and waking everyone up so they could see it – for some reason though I didn’t think my wife would be amenable to getting up for that considering our earlier conversation. So after completely cooling off while staring at the moon, I finally went inside, grabbed a quick bite and then iced down my shins. My house was very cold and between cooling down and icing; I became completely chilled to the bone. Fortunately, my wife was nice and warm when I got into bed. Heh hee.

Manhattan Special

Once again I did the Two Bridges run. While last week I focused my run in pictures around the Brooklyn Bridge, today I decided to pay more attention to the Manhattan Bridge. First up, is a picture of me climbing the north side of the bridge. The picture can’t show it, but the Manhattan Bridge is pretty noisy. There are trains constantly crossing it and it can get really loud. About a third of the way up the span, you get a great view of the Williamsburg Bridge. I'll be running on that bridge soon enough as my runs get longer. I continued off the Manhattan Bridge and was greeted with the delicious smells emanating out of all the kitchens preparing the days lunches and dinners. I was tempted to stop at this particular restaurant serving Peking Duck - Yummy! I then ran down to the water and snapped this great shot of the Manhattan Bridge. I am very happy with how it came out on my camera phone. After that it was back to Brooklyn by way of the first bridge to span the East River. Where I finish my run in my usual stomping ground Prospect Park. I am pretty sure the Peking Ducks from my previous picture are related to the ducks you see here swimming on the lake.

Definition of Insanity

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, nothing changes. Which is part of the definition of insanity. And what is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But I am not trying the same thing over and over again, but still nothing changes. Maybe the thing I am trying to change is just unchangable. So in the end I am still insane.

Gray Chest Hair

I woke up this morning to find another gray chest hair. I thought I eliminated this problem a couple of months ago when I first discovered one of those bad boys and plucked it off my chest. It was much to my dismay this morning that I found another. I mean, how does this happen? It wasn’t there yesterday. Did a 1 inch strand of hair suddenly sprout out of my chest overnight? Did something happen to this hair follicle that caused it to suddenly turn gray? I haven’t been under any particular stress for such a dramatic event to occur so the whole thing is deeply puzzling. It’s enough to make me want to start shaving my chest again. So anyway, I was discussing my gray hair with some friends over twitter, which led to the inevitable discussion over age. I started to ask if my friend Darkgracie understood why time seems to pass faster as we get older. She feels that it is a state of mind. That as we get older we are busier so perhaps don’t notice how fast time is passing by us. No doubt that this possibility is a contributing factor. However, what I truly believe causes this phenomena of the years passing by faster has to do with fractions. You see, as we get older, each year becomes a smaller fraction of our lives. A year in the life of a 40 year old is not as significant as a year in the life of an 8 year old. To an 8 year old, 1 year represents a relatively large portion of his life; whereas to a 40 year old it’s a much smaller fraction. The interval of time we are measuring is the same, but as a total portion of one’s life, it becomes less significant as the years go on. A 1 year interval to a child seems to be a huge amount of time, that’s because proportionally to their lives it is a large amount of time. As we age, each year is in proportion smaller amounts of your entire life which in turn makes the time seem to go faster. A 40 year old may have trouble remember which year something happened in since they tend to blend together after a while. One year ago for an 8 year old would seem like a very long time ago. At 40, you need to have many years pass before it seems like a long time ago. You can read other people’s theories about why this phenomenon occurs here. In a way I am glad I am doing the Vermont 100 miler instead of Ironman Lake Placid this year, just for the change of pace. As you start doing the same race over and over again, one year just begins to bleed into the next year. I was discussing this with my friend Larry who has streaked to 25 consecutive New York City Marathons. I asked him if he can remember something specific from each of the Marathons. He didn’t think he could; they all become the same after a while. Sure there were a few marathons at which he could remember specific things, but overall they all became the same. It begins to become like it was just yesterday when you were doing the previous year’s marathon. You are doing the same thing year after year only the number on the calendar has changed. I guess you can also think of it as life starts to become easier as you gain more experience. When you were a young child it would take you a while to read through a book when you were first starting to learn to read. As you get older and got more practice at reading, the pages would turn ever faster and faster. It is easier to pass the time as you get more experienced with age. It just slips by. Well, that is enough philosophy for one day. It is time for me to get out and do a run. I can’t miss days. Yes, one day in and of itself is insignificant, but they add up. July 19th will be here very soon. Before I know it, my first Vermont 100 Miler will have been several years ago. I know that too soon, I will be looking back at this event rather than looking forward to it. I want to look back at it knowing I made a good showing. In order to be able to have that piece of mind, I need to put in the work now while I still have the time. The day will be here soon enough.

Time to Swim

Wednesday, 1/16, 6pm on F train heading towards Brooklyn Today is a non-running day, which means I am heading to the pool. I really wish I did my swim in the morning, but as usual I slept too late to make it to the pool on time. I really need to get to bed earlier. I just don’t want to go to sleep so early. I just want entertainment at night, whether it is watching TV, chatting online or perhaps best of all, having sex with my wife. But even after all that is done I don’t feel like going to sleep. It’s like I’ve suddenly become afraid that I am going to miss something. If only we didn’t have to sleep. I am really not in the mood to go to the pool. The whole point of the pool workout is to give my legs a rest, serve as active recovery and to keep my cardiovascular fitness improving. That is looking at it negatively though. I need to change that line of thinking. Swimming will give me a much needed upper body workout, balance out my body and for vanity’s sake and keep me looking good. I look back at my IMLP photos, especially from 2005/2006 and I see how cut I looked. I love the way I looked in those pictures and do want to get back there. Swimming is one way to do it. I just got to start swimming in the morning so it doesn’t seem like such a chore as when I do it at night. Anyway, so I am on the way to the pool. Hopefully it won’t be crowded, or even better it will be closed because someone puked in it. Hey, that’s not good… Did I really just say that? Thursday, 1/17, 9am on F train heading into Manhattan I felt really good after my swim last night. As I stood in the locker room feeling the warmth in the muscles of my upper body I began to feel like a triathlete again. I guess in my heart I will always want to be a triathlete and not just an ultrarunner. Suddenly, I was feeling like increasing my schedule to incorporate more swim and bike training. However, that is not what I am supposed to do. I am an ultrarunner now and that’s what I have to focus on. I ran 9 miles this morning. It was supposed to be 8, but I took a new course and misjudged how far I would go. I kind of knew if would go over, but I didn’t really care. I figured a little extra distance won’t hurt me and besides I was enjoying the run. My legs were a little sore from the previous days strength training session, but it was a good soreness. The weather was beautiful outside and I just wanted to run. I would have gone longer had time permitted. Friday 1/18 6pm I am sitting in my office drinking a Bud Light waiting for the poker game with my staff to begin. I am kind of out of sorts today. I woke up around 4am and decided to get out of bed. I had a bowl of Total Whole Grain Cereal and then decided to get on my bike for an hour instead of going back to sleep. I didn’t want to take a chance that I would go back to bed, oversleep and miss the workout. So I headed to my trainer in the basement, put on the season finale of Dexter on Showtime on Demand and spun easily for 60 minutes. I finished by 5:30am which left me 2.5 hours to go back to sleep before I had to get back up for work. By the time I woke up again, I wondered if the workout had ever really happened. I had to check my HR monitor to see if I actually recorded a workout. I did, but I still felt as though I did nothing for the day. I called my coach later on and asked him if I did a workout in the middle of the night, went back to bed and then woke up feeling like I didn’t work out, will I have actually have done it. He said yes, so I didn’t worry about doing another one even though I still feel the need to get in some exercise.

Cooking in my Kitchen

It was a pretty difficult run this morning. It was nothing about the course I ran, it just felt like my legs had a hard time moving. This happens sometimes and I am not sure why. Sometimes I think it just has to do with running in the morning, before my body has fully woken up and warmed up. I know there have been times when I’ve gone out feeling like I did, only to turn around, go back home and then do the run later in the day at which time I felt great. But I was already outside and I didn’t feel like turning back so I persevered through a 6.2 mile run. It wasn’t my best, but at least I did it and the morning was absolutely beautiful. Perfect really for a January morning run and much more enjoyable than yesterday’s one hour ride on the spin bike at the NYSC. I wish though the run put me in a better mood for the rest of the day. I have to deal with an asshole at work; someone who insist on cooking inside my kitchen. She insists she knows how to bake my pie, but the only thing she is going to do is make a mess of things. I really need to tell her to go fuck herself. Lord knows she can probably use it as I can’t see anyone, male or female wanting to get anywhere near this creature. She makes stomachs turn and skin crawl. Maybe I can get everyone to start calling her Guffy - Gezz Ugly, Feel Free to Fuck Yourself. It so fits her. I’ll just have to focus on more pleasant thoughts throughout the day. Like running through the woods during the VT100 when I am dead tired, achy and can hardly move. I get chills thinking about that. How bad will I feel? Will I be feeling bad at all? All of these are questions that I do not have answers for. The closest I have to knowing this information were the 5 times I’ve done an Ironman. If that’s the case, then I suppose I won’t know whether or not I could do it until I actually cross the finish line. I remember when I ran my best Ironman, an 11:11 effort at Lake Placid that I really didn’t know if I would finish the race until I started to head down the finishers shoot. I remember thinking I could blow up at anytime. I suppose that is what it will be like at the VT100. I’ll probably be at the 99 mile mark and still wondering if I could do it. You just never know. I could take a break at mile 99, sit down, fall asleep and then miss the cutoff. It’s an unlikely scenario, but possible. I am just going to have to wait and see. In the meantime, I will continue working out, even on those days when I don’t feel so great. I must get used to training through all sorts of conditions and feelings. I am sure I will be going through many conditions and feelings once I start the VT100.

Two Bridges Run

I had a fantastic run today. I decided I was going to do the Two Bridges run, which meant I would run through downtown Brooklyn, over the Manhattan Bridge and then back into Brooklyn by way of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was a breezy and cool, but still well warmer than normal for a day in January. I started the run off with a run through Prospect Park to warm up. I was looking forward to getting out of the park though; since I am getting a little stir crazy being in there all the time. Exiting the park through Grand Army Plaza, I made my way down Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge. The MB is a neglected jewel for running. Hardly anyone uses the pedestrian walkway. It a free and clear shot into Manhattan with spectacular views of the Brooklyn Bridge and downtown Manhattan. It is a smooth run, but can be a little noisy and the subway runs right along the side. Every time I run over the bridge I can’t help feeling as though something is missing from the skyline as I cross it. Maybe one day it will look right and whole again. The best part of running over the MB is the view it afford of the Brooklyn Bridge. You can see it from end to end and the boats passing underneath. Once off the bridge it was a quick trip through the sights and smells of Chinatown. It is quite a contrast from the Brooklyn side of the bridge. I quickly ran through Chinatown and felt my stomach rumble as the smell of duck and port wafted out of the kitchens. I bee lined out of there and headed for the East River, down under the FDR drive. As you run along the water, you can see a small beach exposed just under the Brooklyn Bridge. I snapped another photo from here. I would have liked to have posted this one to utterz, but I was getting cold just standing around. Instead I got on the move again and headed back up to the Brooklyn Bridge. Few people remember that the original walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge used to be broken up by staircases on each side. This was changed back when the bridge was renovated back in the 80’s. Now it is a very pleasant by crowded run over a wooden walkway. I took a photo of the suspension cables holding up the bridge. Please excuse my thumb in the bottom left of the picture. The BB, is actually a combination of Suspension and Cable Stay technologies. The combination makes for a beautiful spider web type effect. It is really a very beautiful piece of architecture. Once off the bridge, I just made my same way back to Prospect Park to finish off the run. I was schedule for 12 miles, but decided to do a baker’s dozen. Thinking of a baker’s dozen got me in the mood for bagels, so I stopped and purchased one before I got home. I had it with a schmear of cream cheese and a couple of easy over eggs. So here are the stats for today’s run: 13.1 miles in 1:58:56. Avg/Max HR: 149/159 Ascent 600 feet.

I run to see who has the most guts

A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Steve Prefontaine. What a damn animalistic quote. I absolutely love it. You need to be maniacal to push yourself like that. There is a certain joy in pushing yourself beyond your limits. Really what are your limits anyway? How do you ever know you’ve reached them? The only way to do so is to keep pushing harder. I won’t say that today during the Fred Lebow 5 miler in Central Park that I pushed myself to my limits. However, I did push myself at a faster pace than I have done so in quite some time. It felt good and bad at the same time. It always does. I wasn’t sure how fast I would be able to run at. I just ran a pace that I felt I could sustain. I measured my progress by the number of runners that I passed or passed me. For the most part I stayed with the same group throughout the race; at least it appeared that way to me. The defining part of the race, was just at the start of the Cat Hill section of the course. Another runner had come up on my right and I felt irked enough not to let this person pass. I thought of the Steve Prefontaine quote at this point. I decided I wanted to see who had enough guts to make it up this hill first. I started to really put in my first competitive hard effort since the Staten Island 6 hour run. It felt really good to hold this person of and in fact drop him before I got to the top of the hill. At this point it wasn’t that much further to the finish line. I managed to drop my pace by 30 seconds per mile to 6:47 and finished the race strong. I wasn’t even winded when I crossed the line and stopped running, which let me know I still could have gone a lot harder. I didn’t want to push it though, my HR was at around 95% of max and I didn’t want to risk injury. I put in a good hard effort and took a good measurement of where I stand fitness wise. I learned that I still have a lot of work and fitness to recover, but I am not as bad as I feared I would be. I’ll be happy once I run my races in sub 7 minute miles. Lap Time Lap Time HR Max Avg Min Dist min/mile 1. 0:07:38.2 0:07:38.2 168 169 157 116 1.008 7:36 2. 0:14:50.6 0:07:12.4 168 171 168 165 1.027 7:08 3. 0:22:12.6 0:07:22.0 171 172 170 167 1.021 7:15 4. 0:29:32.3 0:07:19.7 175 176 172 168 1.006 7:17 5. 0:36:25.9 0:06:53.6 179 179 176 174 1.018 6:47

Drinking Again

I think I blogged something about trying out sobriety recently, but I just couldn’t help myself tonight. A friend called me beyond the last minute (I was way to leave the office) and asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink. We always have a good time together, so of course I said yes. I wound up in Papillion and had 4 beers and a plate of fried Calamari. Not the best thing to eat and drink the night before a race, but what the hell, you only live once. At least I am not as drunk as this guy sitting next to me on the train. Whenever the train starts moving again after a stop, he falls into my side. I don’t mind though, I think I’ve been there before. At least he doesn’t smell. Tomorrow I am doing the Fred Lebow 5 miler in Central Park. I need to be at the New York Road Runners Club to pick up my race number by 7:30am. I am going to meet a friend there at this time. It should be really interesting to see if I make it in time. It’s already 9:30pm (as I write this on the subway), I haven’t eaten dinner and for the life of me haven’t been able to get out of bed before 8am for the past few days. I know I’ll do it, because this year is the start of the new me; the one that’s seriously training for the Vermont 100 miler. Well, that’s all I have to say for now. I’ll post this entry when I get home, after I recycle some beer of course, and then eat dinner and go to bed. I’ll probably wind up driving and spring for a parking garage somewhere on the East Side. I just don’t see myself waking up by 5:30am to make the subway by in time to make it to the race on time. Hey, I make enough money to splurge every once in a while. Thank G-d for that.

Give Up Drinking?

I suppose I should give up drinking now that I am committing myself towards training for the VT100 and the fact that the alcohol tends to exacerbate my headaches. However, I told myself I should live my life in moderation and giving up all alcohol would be abstinence and not moderation. I believe that total abstinence is the right policy for very few things in life. I like to try most everything at least once in a while. Think about it… I can’t even say that I totally abstain on killing. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill a cockroach running across my path. Yesterday I did manage to drink again. I was with a large group of colleagues from my office and we were all at the Marriott Marquois Times Square bar chilling out after attending a day of conferences. At first I decided to only drink water, but the temptation of free booze and getting a little loose with a group of people I for the most part liked was eventually too great. I decided to have a Guinness beer or two while we were hanging around waiting for a post conference party to begin. I was careful to monitor myself and not drink too much as I didn’t want the headache I had in the morning to return. That headache required a shot of Imitrix in my ass to get rid of it. I didn’t feel like going back there. So anyway, I drank 1.5 beer mug size glasses (or was it 2.5) of Guinness before we headed to a Mexican restaurant/bar for the after party. There I had half a glass of a frozen marguerita, which I didn’t like and hence only half a glass and then a bottle of Bohemia, my favorite Mexican beer. I ate lousy, noshing on tortilla chips and an assortment of Quesadillas that were being served as cocktails. While I was there, I was talking to another colleague who does a lot of training as well. She was telling me how she decided to take today off from training. All I could think about was how I missed my training this morning and how I really felt like I should have done something today. I decided right then and there that I was going to cut the night short and go home for a run in Prospect Park. I said my goodbyes and made for the subway. I got home pretty quick, but feeling minimally headachy and tired. I forced myself out the door though, since I know come the VT100, I’ll be more than headachy and tired come 1am in the morning when I will have been running for over 18 hours. I need to get used to running when I don’t want to. Perhaps drinking and making myself not feel so great is a great strategy for preparing my body for this type of training. I’ll have to check with my coach on that one. So anyway, last night’s run turned out to be a decent 4 miles around Prospect Park. I felt really good about getting myself out there and I enjoyed a nice run in solitude. It was just the type of calming thing to help me fall asleep later, without the need of an Ambien.

Chills

Well I ran longer than I should have this morning, especially considering I shouldn’t have run at all. This morning was a scheduled pool workout, but I woke up too late to get the swim in and make it to work on time. So I went out for what should have been a short run, but instead I went ahead and made it longer. Only 6.3 miles, but it turned what should have been a sub 30 minute workout into almost an hour. So now I am just as late to work as if I had gone to the pool. Maybe not that bad, but still I am pushing the line with how late I’m going in. What’s worse is I have a meeting I am going to be late for. Oh well. I was just enjoying my run too much to stop it short. Unlike yesterday I was running pretty well today. I averaged about 9 minute miles pretty effortlessly. My HR is still a little high for a 9mm effort, but that will come down over the next couple of months. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on the fitness I lost over the late fall. The key is to just keep from getting too exuberant with my running to prevent potential injury. That is going to be hard to do though if I keep feeling the way I did during this morning’s run. It was one of those days where I get chills down my spine from feeling so good. Part of the good feelings was thinking about what I am going to be doing in July. In fact I am getting those chills now as I type this blog entry. Running the VT100 is going to be something that is great. A real point in my life that I will remember. I think of myself now running alone in the middle of the night. Will I be delirious? Will I be happy? Will I be thinking about lying on the ground, rolling into a ball and dying? I have no idea and that is part of the excitement. I will be pushing my body to a point it’s never been to before. I’ll be exploring uncharted territory; reaching the unknown. I’ll be a modern day explorer searching my own soul for answers. I’ll measure myself as a man, see what sort of guts I have and run for 100 miles. Failure at this endeavor is not an option. Knowing that I am going to be doing this, well, it’s not a feeling I can easily describe. I am going to make a concerted effort this year to fully document my training online. After all, it’s not every year where I will be training for a 100 mile race. I should pay respect to what I am going to do and document how I got there. Half if not most of the event is all of the training you do leading up to it. I’d only be telling half the story if all I wrote about was doing the event itself and not writing about what I did to allow me to accomplish my goal.

Focusing on the Vermont 100 Miler

Winter, it’s the new Spring. I just love Spring in the Winter. I am able to go to work without a coat and I can run outside without having to put on tights, hat and multiple layers. Not that I really mind the cold. If you dress properly, the cold should not be an issue, even on the most cold and windy of days. But nothing beats getting home from work and hearing your kids tell you that it’s so warm outside that they want to ride their bikes with you while you run. I love when they accompany me. Besides the company, I know they are getting some much needed exercise and a break from the usual gamut of cartoons on TV. Yesterday worked out perfectly for me. I wanted to go for a run at lunch in this sunny and warm weather, but I was invited out to a power lunch to welcome a new staff member to my company’s management team. I couldn’t gracefully turn it down and I harbored hopes of being able to sneak out of the office later in the day to get in the run. How happy was I, when my wife called me later in the day to tell me that my kids wanted to ride with me when I got home from work. It made my day and once again thought how everything happens for a reason. This morning I started to get back into my training routine after being off of it for a little over a week due to travel and a cold. I need to get focused if I am going to have a shot at being successful for the Vermont 100 miler. I got outside this morning while it was still dark, in shorts and light jacket (Go Global Warming!), and did a slow 7 miles in Prospect Park. I had the energy to do the run and the music I was listening to made the run go by pleasantly enough, but I was a little concerned with how slow my pace was. I was only averaging about 10 minute miles which is obscenely slow for me. I was wondering what ever happened to my casual 8 minute mile training pace. I could already hear in my head the conversation I am going to have with my coach later in the day when I complain to him about my pace. He is just going to tell me not to worry about it. I guess I really shouldn’t, especially because in the Vermont 100 miler I would be very ecstatic with averaging a 10 mm pace and I know I will not be averaging that. For the VT100 I’ll be quite satisfied coming in at 24 hours which is just under 14:30’s per mile. That pace just sounds so doable, but we are talking about moving at that pace for a straight 24 hours. We will just see how it goes. Those back to back 8 hour training runs that will come up in the real Spring should be a good indication of my VT100 pace. One of the biggest things I am coming to grips with over doing the VT100 is the fact that I am pretty much giving up on Ironman for the next two years. Well, at least IM Lake Placid. I won’t be doing it this year, and I won’t be able to register myself for next year. Ironman is just something I’ve been holding onto for the past 5 years and its feeling weird letting go. I suppose I could drive the few hundred miles from Vermont to Lake Placid to register the day after, but I think that might just be a little insane; just a little. I really can’t worry about that though. I need to focus completely on the VT100. Perhaps I’ll be able to get into the Badwater 135 the next year. For those reading my blog that don’t know, the Badwater 135 is a 135 mile run starting in Badwater, Death Valley in the middle of the summer. It starts from the lowest point on the North American continent (285’ below sea level) and winds up on top of Mt. Whitney at 8360'. If I can do the VT100, I should be able to do that. It’s only an extra 35 miles. Oh the suffering should be so damn good.

Sick and Taking it Easy

1/4/07 I’ve been sick for the past few days so I haven’t done any training. I hate when that happens. I start to get used to just lying around and it gets hard to start up again. I get used to sleeping late and taking it easy. The old habits of sitting back and watching TV begin to take over and I can feel myself becoming a couch potato slob again. But maybe this is happening for a reason. My shin has been bothering me and I have to get it to heal. In just 7 months time I’ll be running 100 miles through the hills and trails of Vermont. I need to have my leg completely healthy. Perhaps a cortisone shot will help 1/6/07 1:00am Well I can’t fall asleep again which has been nothing new. I feel as though I can take a bottle of Ambien and I would still stay awake. At least I was able to get in a run Saturday afternoon, despite the fact that I am still feeling sick. I did just an easy 4 mile run around Prospect Park. It felt great. I was running with a feeling of exhilaration as I thought about how in just 7 months time I’d be running 100 miles. If that thought isn’t enough to motivate me during this short stuff, I don’t know what would. All I could think of would be the sense of accomplishment I will have once I complete that race, hopefully less than 24 hours so I can get the special buckle. I am going to finish sucking on this Ambien in a few minutes at which time I’ll try to go to sleep again. I feel like waking up early enough to do a moderately long run. This just means I plan to run for as long as I feel like. I am not sure how far that will be at this point, but I at least want to give myself a chance to do so before I need to start running errands for the day. Well, that’s all for now, I am hoping to sleep soon.

2007 into 2008

So 2007 was not one of my better years in terms of training and racing. The year was plagued with illness and injury and I never really had a chance to get going. The highlights of the year in racing were the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, SOS and the Staten Island 6 hour run in which I came in 7th overall. Ironman Lake Placid was a total bust this year, but that is ok. I wasn’t well before the race and at least I attempted it. Many people would simply have said screw it. The best time I had training were the two weeks I had in Spain where I ran about 150 miles in two weeks and swam about 8 miles. At least I finished 2007 strongly and setup to have a good 2008. The light year was reflected in my overall distance. For 2007 I had 2425 Cycling miles, 1200 Running miles and 92 swimming miles. I’d like to see my 2008 distances be more in the range of 4000, 2000 and 150 respectively. These are just arbitrary numbers I am coming up with; I have no idea if I’ll be able to do so much. I’ll have to take it one week at a time. In any event, 2008 started off with my usual New Year’s festivities. First was an early morning run with my friend Larry around Prospect Park. It was a cool rainy day and we were both feeling tired from the evening before. Larry from drinking and staying up a little too late and me from having a full day skiing, bowling and eating in the Bershires, followed by a mad 183 mile dash home in my car to make it to my friend’s New Year’s Eve party before midnight – which I did make. However, the run woke us up and afterwards we reconvened for our annual Polar Bear New Year’s Dip in Coney Island. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by then and 1000’s of people were out on the beach all ready to plunge into the icy Atlantic. The group I was with all plunged ourselves into the water several times. It is such a rush going into the freezing cold water in nothing but a thin bathing suit. I felt so good every time I came out of the water. An amazing sense of well being infused my body and I was laughing and smiling and yelling in joy. After getting out of the cold water, the air temperature felt so warm that we all just hung around in our bathing suits and threw a football around. It was a great day to be alive. After we left the beach, we headed back to Larry’s house where his wife had prepared the most delicious chili and her secret recipe for Hot Toddy’s – A drink consisting of tea, run, fruit juices, spices and other ingredients which shall remain secret. I hung around for several hours eating, drinking and talking until I started to feel the tiredness creep through my body and I could no longer hold my eyes open. I said my goodbyes and walked back home where I promptly took a much needed nap. Unfortunately, on this second day of 2008, I awoke with a cold and sore throat. I am not going to rush my training and let the cold subside before I pick it up again. There is no point in sucking in my cold germs and giving myself Bronchitis. I’ve had that the last two January’s in a row and don’t want to go through that again. I’ll just rest until I feel better. Lastly, for a great bit of news, I walked into my house this evening to find out I’ve been accepted into the Vermont 100 mile running race. I am so excited, nervous and a bit sad. Excited, because I’ve wanted to do this race for a while, nervous because my shin has been problematic and sad, because it means that I will miss Ironman Lake Placid this year. It will be the first time in 5 years that I will not be doing Lake Placid and I might not be able to get into IMLP for 2009 if I don’t go up to the race site. But that’s the price you have to pay sometimes to get and do the things you want. So it’s time to get serious about rehabbing my shin. I finally shaved my leg and broke out with my TENS unit. Hopefully its regular application will help alleviate the problem. I’ll just have to see how things go over the next few weeks and months.