back to the gym

I admit my gym use dropped off in the second half of the year. I was getting busier at work and the time I spent in sports therapy took up my gym time. But I did start going back right after the marathon, though mostly for the hot tub.

Today I just couldn't face the cold outside and decided to put in some time on the stationary bike and get serious again about my core exercises. I was doing pretty well in the first half of the year and kinda let that go.

I was ashamed how wiped out I felt after 25 minutes on the bike and how far I've fallen in terms of pushups, situps, pullups, free weights, etc. Well, it's going to be a long winter.

the inaugural Ted Corbitt 15K

I came to consciousness Saturday morning and immediately resolved to skip this one. The weather was awful. It had snowed and sleeted the whole day before and though it wasn't precipitating at the moment, I knew it was going to be a cold and grey morning.

Problem is, I needed to complete that last qualifier. I'd paid for this and I intended to do it. Besides, knowing nothing else about Ted Corbitt, the namesake of this run, I did know that he had enjoyed a reputation for running in any weather. So, I got my ass out of bed at 5:45 and got ready to go.

It was easier last weekend, the Hot Chocolate 4 miler. Used to be this weekend, the 15K, was the Hot Chocolate run. But ol' Teddy needed props, so things got changed up, I guess. Frankly, I don't care what they call it. A rose by any other name...

Last weekend, I didn't worry about hydration and fueling during the run. This time, though, I mixed up a gelbot full of powersnot and S.E. and brought that along with me. I dressed exactly as needed for a 22-degree morning: polypropylene socks, runner's long underwear, pants, cotton long-sleeve T, high-necked winter running shirt over that, a throwaway layer, and my wind- and water-resistant marathon jacket. (I love that jacket - it is really just the perfect piece of running gear.)

I got to NYRR headquarters to pick up my bib and t-shirt and discovered the race had been converted to a fun run. Had I checked the web before leaving home, I'd have known that. What this means is that if you had registered for the race at all, you'd get your qualifer credit. You didn't even have to show up.

Well. I considered just going home immediately. I still wasn't looking forward to actually running in this cold, grey, slushy shit. But...well, I was already in Central Park after all, maybe I'd see who all showed up. I didn't see anybody I know in the 40-minutes before the race, but all these other strangers and I had a great time questioning each others' sanity.

I had no intention of running 15 kilometers if I didn't have to. I figured, though, I'd at least put in the two and a half miles down to Columbus Circle and that would at least be exercise. But...that water bottle with me was mighty heavy for some reason. And cold. And my shoulders were getting tense carrying it. So right after the first portajohns, I propped the bottle in the snow near a lamppost and determined that if I felt okay at Columbus Circle, I'd finish the 5-mile loop and come back for the bottle, then go home.

I did pretty good in that first five miles. Stopped to shed the disposable layer, and had to walk just a little (most notably part of Cat Hill), and felt intolerably SLOW, but I was making progress.

Somehow, I finished the five miles...and picked up the gelbot...and since I had just been lapped by the winners finishing their second loop, I decided to go ahead and finish the last 4.3 miles.

And it sucked. I should have kept the Sustained Energy with me in the first five miles - and would have had I followed a 15k game plan from the start! But I didn't, so I started running out of energy after the seventh mile. Had to walk more and more. In fact, I ended up playing tag with this older African American guy who looked like an ex-boxer. He and his...girlfriend?...were out struggling through it all, too. Turns out, they'd both done the marathon and, like me, were finding this run to be a harder challenge.

Well, he beat me to the finish line, but not by much. I was happy to finish, and feel I earned my qualifier. But my time is woefully SLOW. I am really going to have to get back to some serious stretching and some speedwork, or these times I'm posting lately will never improve.

Post time

To take a metaphor from horse racing; it's POST TIME. In the race to be in the race, you gonna hafta be early to get an entry: Fred Lebow 5-miler and Manhattan Half are BOTH capped at 5,000. Registration for all races through the end of March is now OPEN:

https://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/start.cgi/aes-programs/registration/regstart.htm

Good luck. I signed up for five, including the Manhattan and Bronx halves, which are only two weeks apart.

Just lie there and think of England.

Well, New York runners, I hope you got the peppermint-flavored anal lube out and warmed up, because here it comes: NYRR is once again bending us home-town-ers over and farking us deep and hard. By way of their email newsletter, NYRR has announced registration caps for most races during the year and race fees are about to go up. Again.

I'm beginning to dislike CEO Mary Wittenburg. She is a pretty figurehead, excellent politician, and a runner, but not a Fellow Runner, I'm afraid. During her brief tenure, to date, we've seen race fees go up by 50%-100% (depending on NYRR membership status, when you register, etc), seen hometown qualification chores rise (a volunteer commitment is now required), and the institution of a corral system at ALL races.

Now I will be the first to say that every NYRR member should volunteer - but to require it of people trying to qualify for the marathon reduces that gig from being voluntary to "voluntary". And I hate having to put quotes around words. I saw a whole hell of a lot of "volunteers" at the last race - most of them completely superfluous. This new wealth of man-hours is being mis-managed.

Corrals - also an excellent idea for the larger races. But when I find myself a quarter-mile from the start line at every single race because I'm a slow runner; when that even includes the damn FUN RUNS for crying out loud - it ceases to be a good start management tool and becomes simply discrimination against new or less able runners.

Now the races are to be capped. Read about it here. I note that certain races - those with big sponsors I suppose - will have higher caps. Not NO caps, mind you, but higher caps. Okay, I can understand not wanting to have 8,000 runners at every 4-mile race and pitiful turnout during the rainy 10Ks. I can understand wanting to find a way to spread out the qualifiers load more evenly over the races. But capping races at 5,000 is going to lead to mad rushes to register for the good races and people who aren't checking online registration every day are going to get locked out of races that better suit their calendar, running style, or which their friends are running. It will be harder to do races as groups.

There will be more runners who fail to qualify for the NYC Marathon. This makes it feels like just another waying of squeezing out the New York runners from our own city's major race! Sure, there are seven other ways into the marathon, but when you live in that city, you expect a break - and having to put in 9 qualifying races plus 1 volunteer commitment, all around capped races is NOT what I call a break, or even equal ground with the out-of-country tour groups. (This is the only race I know of where the locals have to run more than one qualifying race. All other races, if you have to run a qualifier, it's for qualifying TIME (i.e. Boston), and the only block to NOT getting in the race is that registration fills up. I understand caps on marathons, even the NYC Half-Marathon - but 4-milers??)

Perhaps this is a way of pressuring more runners into getting bibs by raising money for charity. Admirable to raise money; but not fun or meaningful when forced to as the only way into the marathon.

I don't know. It doesn't break any laws, and since NYRR is a corporation and not a members-run club, I guess they can make their own rules - but the rules suck. I feel more and more like I have to fight for an entry into my own city's marathon.



I'm also feeling like I'm PAYING more and more. Yep, that's right. "NYRR will be holding race prices at their current levels through March 31." In other words, race fees will be going up in April. So not only are we under the yoke, but we also have to suck the financial dick just a little harder, too.

You know, I used to volunteer for the Marathon Expo AND the marathon - four hard days worth of volunteering. A LOAD of time commitment. But now, I may not do that again, and just do my volunteering on some little 4-miler that will be over quickly. I'll still feel like I've paid my dues.



So there you have it, Sisypheans, another notch in the ever-tightening belt that will eventually keep YOU from being able to get into your own marathon! Happy Holidays, biatches!

--

Oh, and just because 'tis the season to be be bitchin', I leave you with this curmudgeonly thought: Who the hell thought this monstrosity was ever a good idea?



I'd love to have heard that conversation:
"Hey, that's a gorgeous spruce you got there on your upstate property, John...been growing that for, what, about 70 years?"
"A-yup."
"Yeah, she's a real beauty. Tall and proud, home to dozens of woodland creatures, with many decades of life left in her."
"A-yup."
"Let's chop 'er down!!"
"A-yup."

You can insert the drool visuals on your own. Somewhere the story gets even worse:

"Hey, let's drag this bush into the city, choke the natural beauty out of it with 5 MILES of wires and cold, ugly, garish LED lights, and top it with a relic straight out of the 70's! It'll be the biggest eyesore in the whole wide metropolis!!"
"A-yup."
*drool*

Yeah, that's right; I said it: Rockefeller Center's "tree" is a blight on the cityscape and a crime against nature. For all you can see of the tree itself, they might as well put up an artificial one. And the lights...ugh. Serious amount of ugh. Whoever the designer was should be blinded as a retaliatory gesture for his crime against the people of NYC. But I'll settle for a boot to the ass that leaves welts that spell out, "Hey, genius - you can do LEDs and still make it look good!"

And what's with NY Public Library? Not a single decoration! Not even a bow around George or Gracie's necks! This...might have to be remedied.

Hot Chocolate 4-miler

Part of me can't believe its been six weeks since the marathon. In that short amount of time, I've become a lazy, bad runner all over again. I'm sure there's still a marathon lurking somewhere inside of me (or why else would I be doing these end-of-year qualifiers?), but I'm in the same December slump I've been in the last two years.

I was supposed to have run the Kleinerman 10K last weekend, but due to several and various circumstances, I ended up showing up too late. The winners were already reaching the finish line and the start line was long gone. Goddamitsomuch.

Mid-week, I ran twice, though not for long distances, only a mile and 2 miles. I feel like I'm still trying to break in these damn orthotics and my body is having a hard time adjusting.

But yesterday's run wasn't too bad. It was cold and windy, but sunny. I dressed just enough not to have to check a bag, which meant I was fairly chilly waiting for the race to start, but comfortable once we got going.

I showed up in plenty of time and probably should have run some warm-up mileage, but wound up instead standing in the wrong corral for 20 minutes. I lined up two colors ahead of where I should have been. Doesn't matter - they removed the corral barriers early and everybody pressed forward. Once we were packed in more, I felt much warmer!

I didn't try to race this one. I'm still concentrating on even, continuous pacing; less walking; and bringing my per-mile time down. On the first two counts, I did OK. As you can see in the chart, I managed to keep going the entire time except for walking the two water stops and part of Cat Hill. I began to finally feel warmed up toward the end of the race and was able to pick up the pace in the last half mile, which you can also see.

The result is that I did a 43:something; about 10:50 per mile. Not quite the 10:30 per mile I was shooting for, but a slight improvement over Staten Island in October.

My biggest mistake was in not fueling properly. I didn't eat enough breakfast and I didn't take any HEED or Sustained Energy with me; either of which would have helped. So I felt pretty drained by the end of these four miles and that worries me.

Next weekend, for the 15K race, I will take Sustained Energy and some gel and try to keep my energy up. If I can keep the first four miles in the sub-11-min/mile range and then the last five in the 10:00 min/mile range, I'll be happy - but I make no promises. It is more important to run the mile I'm in, reach the next water station, try to tackle the hills better, etc etc.

I'm looking at the end of January - the Manhattan half - and I'm worried. This is not going to be easy.