NYRR NFL Back to Football Run

Posted on August 31, 2012 by scoopsontherun

I’ll be honest about this — I signed up for this race because we got a Nike Dri-Fit shirt. I am that shallow. The distance, four miles, was actually the distance I was supposed to run for my marathon training plan so I guess that sort of helped too.

The race itself was a late addition to NYRR’s calendar and given the amount of last minute email messages from them to get people to register I didn’t think there would be as many people as there were. I believe just under 3,500 people ran the race, which was far less than most of the other races I have run this year. It was still crowded at the start with a lot of jostling for running room but Cat Hill took care of that like a good hill should.

It’s been a while since I have gone for a run in Central Park and it certainly was nice to get back to my old stomping grounds, it was also nice to run at night for a change. I think NYRR should sprinkle a few more of these in.

Running-wise things felt good. I didn’t have any issues with my quad so I think I’m finally over that but I will continue to take extra care of it so I don’t have to worry about it again. I also proved once again that I am the queen of the positive split. You are all jealous that I can do this on a regular basis. Admit it, you know you are. Seriously though, I have to find a way to actually have a negative split. No matter how slow I start out, I always seem to finish slower. Positive splitting aside my overall pace was a lot better than it has been in recent weeks so I am very happy about that.

One note about my Hal Higdon Marathon training app. At .45 miles into the race, Hall told me I had reached the one mile mark. According to the app I ran that first “mile” in 9:13. I’m not sure this app, or any running app due to the smartphone gps, is great for running in densely populated areas. According to the app I ran 4.99 miles with a 9:46 pace. I dream of running that fast. Again, this may work better in less populated areas with fewer tall buildings but I hope no one is relying on this as their sole distance calculator for marathon training. Stick with a gps watch like Garmin or Polar for better accuracy.

Speaking of which, this is a step down week in training so tomorrow’s long run is only 10 miles and I think I’ll head back to Central Park for that. We’ve had a couple of nice low humidity days here in NYC but of course the temps will be rising, in the high 80’s, for my long run. This will give me a chance to try out another running accessory and provide a review. Hint: It’s supposed to help you stay cool.

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Wimps Need Not Apply

Posted on August 28, 2012 by scoopsontherun

I practically had the streets to myself this morning and that was such a wonderful feeling, if only because no one could see me slogging along. It may not have been a pretty sight.

We’re now at that time of year when it is still dark at 5:00 am. This does not make me happy at all. It’s hard to get up at that time of day to begin but man, it’s even harder when it’s dark. Then let’s throw in some rain and that equals almost zero people outside at that time.

I love running in the rain during the summer and fall, it really is so refreshing especially when the humidity is incredibly high. There is also some practicality to running in the rain — you need to get used to it just so that you have an idea of what it will feel like if it happens on race day. Number one tip is that you should apply even more Body Glide than you normally would. Wet clothes get heavy and rub against your skin when it normally wouldn’t. Running in the rain makes you hard core although others may look at you like you’re crazy. But that’s okay, really.

But I was a little dumb this morning and did something I often preach about not doing. I wore dark gray clothes on a dark gray morning. The only thing you could probably see of me were my new white running shoes. Not a good idea.

While it may be nice and quiet out and few people are out and about it does give the occasional car driver the opportunity to skip stop signs, speed on an stretch of the road, and little chance of seeing you if you can’t be seen. I don’t have a local emergency contact these days with my mother still dealing with her own health issues. If something happens to me we’re both screwed. I need to be smarter and want to remind everyone else to be smarter as well. Make sure you can be seen, make sure you can hear away is going on around you, and make sure someone knows the route you’re running and when you expect to be back.

Running at this time of day can be fun and adventurous and not for the wimpy but be safe my friends.

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Week 7

Posted on August 26, 2012 by scoopsontherun

Yeah, that’s not a very exciting title for a blog post just as this wasn’t a very exciting week for running.

My quad was somewhat achy this week so I only ran twice during the week with the hopes of having an extra rest day for my long run.

I was supposed to run the Percy Sutton 5k in Harlem yesterday but my cat had other ideas as he turned off the alarm and I overslept. Taking that as a sign I decided not to do my long run yesterday and ran today. One problem, I didn’t really hydrate that well on Saturday.

Temperature-wise it was cooler today but there was some high humidity. Combine that with my lack of hydration and it made for a tough long run. I also ran this near my home which makes any distance over 10 miles a little tricky as well.

The drivers in my area are not pedestrian friendly so I try to keep to the roads with sidewalks. I think I ran four loops around Lyon Park before heading out on King Street and into Purchase, NY and Connecticut for the it and back portion. It was long and hard but it’s done and that’s the whole point of these long runs. No matter how long it takes you just get those miles in.

More important, was how my quad felt, which was great. Everything else felt like crap but that quad was a trooper. This is a great sign as the intensity of the workouts will increase from here on out.

I did try a new product on my sunglasses today called, Quick Spit Anti-fog spray. I always have problems with my sunglasses fogging up on my long runs during hot and humid days and decided to give this a try. It worked wonderfully. There were a couple of spots where I did fog up a bit where I didn’t apply enough but I was so happy to not have to deal with that. I highly recommend this for anyone who has that problem.

I also picked up a yoga for runners DVD. Go ahead and get the laughter out of your system now. With my recent quad issues and figured this would help get things stretched out and try to balance out some other not so great feeling muscles. I’ll post how that goes after a week of so of actually using the DVD.

I signed up for the NYRR NFL four mile race in Central Park on Thursday, it’s been so long since I have gone running in the evening so this will be a nice change of pace. Next week’s long run is a step down one so the 10 miles should feel nice and easy and I won’t forget to hydrate.

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Leave Your Baggage at Home

Posted on August 23, 2012 by scoopsontherun

If you are running the NYC Marathon or are a member of NYRR you’ve already heard about the new policy announced today — there will be no bag check at the marathon.

This will also probably be the zillionth blog post about this new policy. It just sucks. The reason behind this was to ease congestion at the finish my guess during the time when the majority of runners finish, have to walk a mile, and somewhere in there get their bags. I can understand that problem and I even empathize with that. But from what I have read on the NYRR Facebook page and Twitter feed, people still want to be able to have dry clothes to change into.

Some people have been complaining that they won’t be able to bring stuff to the start. That’s not true you will be given a bag to bring stuff to the start but you won’t be able to check it. This is fine for me. I usually bring food and “throw away” clothes that I discard at the start anyway. But…

By the time I finish the marathon it will be nearing dusk in November. I will have been on the course for over five hours. I want some dry clothes or at least some sweat pants and a change of shoes. Just last week I was starting to think about what to bring in my bag and how I could make it lighter. Instead we will be given “water-repellent, hooded, and fleece-lined Marathon Finish Line Poncho.” Ponchos don’t cover bare legs if you’re over four feet tall. With my luck they will be orange and I’ll look like a giant traffic cone.

NYRR suggests that you have friends or family meet you at the finish family reunion area with anything that you may need post-race. Great if you have friends and family waiting, many of us don’t. We also don’t live near the finish and won’t be staying in nearby hotels.

If you’ve been following the discussion you’ve seen these arguments already and while we know congestion can be a problem at finish it’s hard to suggest solutions to this that don’t impact other things. Moving baggage trucks outside of the park won’t reduce the amount of walking you have to do or be less crowded on a side street. Move the finish line? But where? This is New York City, we don’t have that much space.

While I love running in this marathon, this very well maybe my last NYC Marathon. For the amount of money we are being charged, being denied a basic race necessity seems the wrong way to go. We do get a lot of swag for this fee so I don’t particularly mind the price when I know if I travel out of town I’ll end up paying more travel and lodging. But even some of us who are forgiving have a limit and this baggage thing is mine.

Right now I’m looking at Chicago, Marine Corps, Richmond, or Philadelphia. A lot will depend on my business travel around that time of year. Now, if NYRR changes this policy I might reconsider. But right now, this will be my last NYC Marathon.

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Back to School

Posted on August 21, 2012 by scoopsontherun

After giving my quad some extra rest last week, today meant getting back on schedule and a lovely three mile run around the block.

My quad was tight for most of the run but felt better running than when it did walking. That means I need to run more. I had some extra time this morning so I was able to ice my leg properly and it feels perfectly fine now. I’ll probably regret writing that.

Today I also got to break in my new running shoes! I always get a little excited breaking in a new pair of shoes. There’s so much promise about what we are going to accomplish. The last pair got me through two half marathons, a 15k, a few 10ks, and I don’t even remember how many four mile races. Let’s not forget all those lovely training miles. They were already pushing the 300 hundred mile threshold when I knew their end wasn’t near. Now they’re probably pushing 400+ miles.

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That new pair above is very white but I think after one long run this weekend they’ll look broken in. But just think about all the miles we’re going to run together, including the NYC Marathon. Those shoes are excited!

With my computer on the fritz, well it’s got a bad logic board so it’s basically dead, I have not been able to sync my Garmin. Just when I was excited about having last year’s data to compare this year’s long runs with I don’t have access to it. It’s killing me. It also seems that last year during June I decided not to log my runs in my paper log book. My nerd tendencies also failed me because I never entered any comments on my Excel spreadsheet.

So now I’m going old school and entering all those little juicy details of each run into my paper log book. In a way, that holds a lot of promise with all the details I’ll be entering.

In some ways it feels like I’m going back to school with new shoes and a new notebook. Only this time no one will make fun of me for being a dork.

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Now We’re Talking

Posted on August 18, 2012 by scoopsontherun

We’re finally in to the meat of my training program, the time when from here on out every long is double digits. Marathon training feels light now.

I took the week off from running to give every muscle in my right thigh some time to rest. Doing last week’s long run with the 5k at Yankee Stadium the next day my not have been one of the smartest things I’ve done but it was Summer Streets and it was Yankee Stadium.

With my quad and IT band covered in KT Tape everything was held into place and felt pretty good the whole run. It felts good when I finished and held up for the post run stretching and walking up some stairs. I’ll ice it tonight and give it my legs their usual rest days and we should be in fine shape for next week.

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This is the second week that I used Hal Higdon’s training app in the city. It picked up the signal fairly quick and for the first half of the run was only a quarter of a mile ahead of my Garmin. But…(there’s always a but) it stopped tracking the miles after 6.63 miles. It still kept time, playing music and giving me Hal’s words of wisdom throughout but not distance. I’m not sure why it stopped tracking the distance. I’ll give the app another go next week to see how it holds up.

I’ve ordered a couple of new running gadgets that I’ll test next week and let you know how well they work. One is supposed to keep you cool the other keeps the fog away.

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Summer Streets

Posted on August 11, 2012 by scoopsontherun

Today was a day I have been waiting a long time for and it finally got here! Not that I wasn’t looking forward to the fact that it was Summer Streets where New Yorkers get to take over a seven mile stretch of streets in the city but today was the day when I could compare some marathon training data. I’m a nerd so give me a break.

When looking back at my long run training for last year’s marathon, I realized I actually didn’t start training for the marathon in earnest until this time last year. My first long run of the 2011 marathon training cycle was this seven mile run along Summer Streets.

Near that start of my run along NYC’s Summer Streets. Those two women ended up running the same pace that I was and we ran most of the route near each other. (c) Stacey Cooper

My need to compare training data with last year has been pretty strong and the fact that I haven’t been able to do that has been driving me nuts. Today I finally got that chance and I like what I see.

First, just from a running perspective, I felt a lot better than I remember feeling last year. I was able to find my correct long run pace early and was able to maintain it. I remember the last couple of miles last year being a real challenge and feeling completely spent when I finished. This year, I felt pretty good and that I put in the exact right amount of effort.

Second, the numbers look good. I ran a slightly faster pace than last year and more importantly consistent splits which can be hard to maintain on this course where there is a lot of stopping. This is where the auto pause on my Garmin comes in handy.

My quad felt great and I recovered fairly well but I suppose sitting in a hospital room all afternoon with my mother probably wasn’t the best thing I could have done. It was achy when I got home but the BioFreeze took care of that.

Tomorrow is the Damon Runyon 5k at Yankee Stadium. That involves a lot of stairs which translates into stress on my quad. I’m pretty confident we’ll be in good shape because you know I’m not going to pass up running on the warning track at Yankee Stadium!

I’ll have video of one of the loops around the warning track and hopefully be able to give you an idea of what it’s like to run on the track. It really is a cool feeling.

Now to give my quad some TLC so that it won’t be too mad at me tomorrow.

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I Ran, I Ran So…Slow

Posted on August 9, 2012 by scoopsontherun

Well I did not run on Wednesday as I had hoped. Another glass of wine and Olympic coverage kept that from happening. Oh, and my bed was super comfortable.

But today was different. I managed to get up at 5:00 am, get my stuff together, and ran. But hey, what’s with this darkness stuff creeping in?

I know I only gave my quad four days rest but I really missed getting up early and hitting the street for my morning run. I missed seeing my regular crazies runners and saying “hey.” My lord, how did I turn into this early morning running person?

Overall my quad felt ok. It didn’t hurt but it didn’t feel great. My pace wasn’t my usual Thursday morning pace but closer to my Tuesday morning pace.  It felt great after I got home stretched, foam rolled, and put liberal amounts of BioFreeze on it. This is what we call manageable and I can certainly live with that. Tomorrow morning I’ll actually put the BioFreeze on before I run and see if that makes a difference.

I feel confident enough to continue with my plans to run my seven miles along the NYC Summer Streets on Saturday and then do the Damon Runyon 5k at Yankee Stadium. The stairs will really test out the quad but it’s not like I ever planned on sprinting up them anyway that’s what the ramps going down are for.

I’m happy the quad feels good enough to run again and that I’m feeling less antsy. I need my running.

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Quad Tales

Posted on August 7, 2012 by scoopsontherun

After I had to cut my long run short on Saturday I told myself I would give my quad a whole week off from running just to give it the rest it needed. Well, I made it a whole three days before the antsy feeling kicked in. I think you should be proud of me, I lasted longer than I thought I would.

On the whole my quad feels much better. I’ve been icing it, foam rolling it, and I even took some Advil for a little extra help. Did I mention that I rested it for three days?

My plan is to take it out for a test drive tomorrow morning. That is if I can get up. I just had two large glasses of wine, something I typically don’t do the night before a run. But you see, I decided to try the running thing half way through the second glass of wine. So maybe I’m not thinking properly right now.

But seriously, the quad does feel a lot better. I say this as I have an ice pack making out with said quad (not pictured).

The plan is to go out for an easy run tomorrow morning just to check in and see how everything feels. I’ve got a big running weekend planned and I just want see where I’m at.

Saturday, I plan on doing my seven mile long run along the New York City Summer Streets. That route just happens to be the one where I started my marathon training last year which means I’ll finally have some data to compare where I am now to where I was last year. I’ve been itching for that info for a few weeks now and I will not be denied.

On Sunday, I have the Damon Runyon 5k at Yankee Stadium. We get to run two laps around the warning track. Last year, I touched everything that security would allow me to touch including rubbing my right breast on the WB Mason sign in right field. Please think of my boob whenever you see that sign.

This year, I plan on recording the first lap on the warning track to share with all of you. It really is an incredible experience and I thought it might be nice to share it. It will be slow so you’ll actually get to see into the dug outs and what it’s like to look into the stands from center field. I don’t run that fast to make things blurry. We’ll also be running up all the stairs a couple of times but those are stairs and boring and you don’t want to hear me huffing and puffing as I climb them so I won’t record that part.

So pray for my quad and that I am able to get up and feel human tomorrow morning.

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My Achy Breaky…Quad

Posted on August 3, 2012 by scoopsontherun

The sore legs I had last week are pretty much better this week except for my right quad. It wants to be the drama queen right now.

The times for my weekly runs confirmed that everything was a go. Tuesday was it’s usual sluggish self and Wednesday and Thursday picked up and felt pretty good. However, the right quad did not like when I stopped moving and sat for a while and now is just sore the entire time I am not moving. I have been doing the RICE thing when I have not been running and so far it is getting better.

Tomorrow is my 10 mile long run, the first double digit long run for this year’s training. It feels like the real deal now. I guess when you run more longer distance races it feels odd calling seven miles a long run. In my mind, it isn’t a long run unless it is at least 10 miles. I’m hoping the quad decides to cooperate and let’s me get through this run. I’m pretty confident it will.

On a side note, when I was going back through my running logs I noticed that I didn’t actually run my first long for the marathon until August 13. That goes to show just how much I wasn’t looking forward to the marathon last year. At that time I recall trying to figure out if I should defer, just not do it, or suck it up. A few weeks later I had a really great long run, got excited, and ended up with an 11 minute PR.

This has left me going back to my 2010 numbers to get an idea on what my pace was like and to see how I have been measuring up. I’ve been looking at those numbers with a huge grain of salt since that was my first marathon and I just had no idea what to expect. My 10 mile long from 2010 was about two minutes slower than what I’m averaging now. Since I love to crunch the numbers this is killing me that I’ll have to wait a couple of more weeks to do some solid comparisons. But I’ll live for now.

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