Crappy long run

I should've stuck to the plan. My PLAN was to run a mile or thereabouts every day this week. My PLAN was to take Saturday off to rest. My PLAN was to do 5 miles Sunday.

But Michelle emailed and said she's going to go running with a group in Prospect Park and did I want to come - Saturday? Well, no, actually, I doubted I'd be out of bed at that time, but if she's running on Saturday, I guess I should, too. And then there was the weather report - sunny Saturday, rainy Sunday. How ironic.

So I went out today, tired from the work week getting a show open, and a little sore all over.

I waited too long to go out. Did my run about 3:00 and by then it was 76 degrees out. I was not prepared for that kind of heat. I'd sweated and struggled Friday, when it was only 62 degrees when I ran. I took a bottle of water with me, but probably should have made it HEED instead. This turned into a very slow 4-miler, with about 1/4 of the distance walked. I'd get three or four blocks, walk a block, over and over. I got to the end of the second mile and was just done. Going the extra half mile down to Owl's Head was not possible.

Things were a little easier coming back. I still couldn't manage more than four blocks at a time, but my legs found it easier to pick it back up and keep going. My lungs just couldn't support the effort, though.

The silver lining, as always, is that I coughed up quite a bit - a good partner to my regular therapy.

I will take tomorrow off.

Some other items: 1) The Brooklyn Half is back on. End of May, reverse route. Two full laps of Prospect Park, then out at the southwest corner, across on Ft Hamilton, and then down Ocean to the boardwalk. There's a tiny little bit on the boardwalk and we end at the baseball stadium. Well...it'll be nice to get the hills done early. Then maybe take a while and walk around on the boardwalk and eat hotdogs 'til I feel sick.

2) Speaking of Coney Island, apparently the amusement park aspect isn't going to die - Ringling Bros. is doing something down there this summer. Should be good.

3) I've been much better about extended stretching after my runs, throwing in 10 pushups between types of stretches; i.e. stretch hamstrings, do 10 pushups, stretch quads, do 10 pushups, stretch calves, do 10 pushups, etc. Today I did 40 pushups, raising my feet higher on my steps with each successive set of 10. My pecs are sore, but... well, I've lost a lot of upper body muscle tone since March of '08, when I really in pretty good shape. I'm working to recapture that.

4) I'm not taking tomorrow off completely. I will walk up to the gym, then avail myself of the stationary bike, foam rollers, and weights.

I have more news, but I have to verify some things before I post them.