God, that sucked. We begin at the end. I crossed the finish line and was thinking I might die, but that the run wasn't so bad. The first six miles were pretty good. But as time wore on and I hobbled around gathering my bag, stretching, changing clothes, riding the rails, I found my opinion of this run dipping lower and lower. On future race entry forms, I may have to check the box for "handicapped", and only because there's no check box for "crippled by my own stupidity."
Actually, I will leave the judgment of whether this was a good run or not up to you; and you can decide it after you've read this post and the next one. For now, I'll just post some quick impressions; Part II will have the nitty-gritty play-by-play, wherein the runners among my readers will glean the most information. The non-runners may be satisfied with this post, I don't know.
Weather: this will be the talk of the blogosphere today and tomorrow, because it was bizarre. As promised, the weather was warmer. It was also remarkably humid, with fog in the air as I headed to the subway this morning in the dark. The subway platforms and most pavement were all wet from condensation and runoff from melting ice. During the run, I experienced broiling sun alternating with chilly, breeze, cloudy conditions. The blustery wind played hell with any pace I hoped to hold. I ended the run in the rain. Walking back to the subway, I was walking in the sun AND the rain.
I saw almost all of my running friends today. Lou, Crista, and Billy - the triumvirate of senior running - were all there. Lou, as usual beat my pants off; how a man twice my age manages to beat me every time, I have no idea. I saw Crista several times along the course (which had three out-and-backs) and though I said hi and offered words of encouragement, she was having a rough time and had no words to spare. She was literally dripping sweat. Billy seemed in better shape; I passed her at one point, but it's quite possible she re-gained the lead in the second half of the race, I don't know. These three older runners are really amazing. I swear that if one of them dies, he or she will show up to a race the week AFTER we bury him or her. That's just how tough they are.
I also saw Beast, who was planning on - get this - running the race and then running home. Twenty miles home. He's in training for a 100-mile race, you see. That's the difference between us: I'm stupid, and he's crazy. Actually, I saw someone in the exact same shirt as his riding past in one of the little 3-wheeled police cars well before the end of the race. I hope it wasn't Beast.
And I also saw a new running friend: the nurse practitioner at Columbia, Victoria. It's neat the she runs all these races, too, but she's tall and fast and always well ahead of me, so I rarely see her. Well, at one point, I was walking and coughing and I heard my name shouted from the other side of the road - where the faster runners were on the return of third out-and-back - and it was Victoria. Awesome. I have to wonder, though, if it was the cough that attracted her attention in the first place.
Two more things, then I'm going to go shower and take a nap. I've been typing this as I wait for the painkillers to kick in. I'd like to have had some morphine, but all I have is Aleve (and the Percoset has long ago expired), so three of those will have to do.
Thing One: My prep for the race was pretty good. I rode the D train yesterday all the way to Bedford Park Blvd to see how long it takes. About 75 minutes, as it turns out. So I built that into my morning schedule and was up at 5 a.m. and out the door at 6 a.m. And I didn't forget my salt pills!
Thing Two: My pre-race dinner the night before could have been better. A footlong steak-and-cheese from Subway and two pints of stout at Barcade are probably not the best way to carbo-load, though I had a great time. (I also met two more runners at Barcade!) Though I must take this moment to recommend the Captain Lawrence Espresso Stout. The Rogue Shakespeare Stout I followed it with is alright, but the CL was the balls.
OK. That should hold you for now. Race details later on in Part II after my nap.
February 6, 2009
And now for something completely different...
These are a few of my favorite things. Raindrops on windows and fresh-shaven faces, fake versions of Vegas and art in bad places. Six grey-clad dancers tied up with strings; these are a few of my favorite things.
---
It's been a while since we've had rain. We've had snow and ice, but not rain. It's been bitter cold the last couple of days, getting down into the teens, and I find I've pretty much acclimated to running in the 20s. But tomorrow will be in the 40s and Sunday - the Bronx Half - will hit the mid-50s! If the morning times are even in the mid-40s, I'm going to wear shorts to the race.
---
I shaved today for no good reason at all. I hate shaving, but I love the result, especially if I've waited three or four days. The best results come with a razor that's been used between 3 and 12 twelve times - no more, no less. I've been using products from The Art of Shaving and the results almost make shaving worth it.
---
Let's talk about primetime in the daytime. TNT is for housewives, basement dwellers, and the unemployed. Whoops, that last category is sounding suspiciously like me. I don't watch much daytime TV - I try to catch NY1 in the mornings, but lately, I've been glued to Las Vegas, the show about the fictitious Montecito Hotel in Sin City. It has some great characters and has employed a cast of actors one might have thought were past their prime, but have impressed me nonetheless, including James Caan and Tom Selleck. The cast also features a bunch of good-looking upo-and-comings who are worth keeping an eye on. Anyway, if this were on at night, I'd be a lot happier.
---
Dance is not the end-all and be-all of civilization, but it is one of the great fine arts; at leat it is when in the right hands. To be frank, there's a lot of bad dance out there. And the line between what's good and what's bad and what's merely so-so is very fine. It's also, traditionally, in the eye of the beholder.
I have a lot of experience with dance. I've seen the best and worst NY has to offer and I've lit a lot of what's in-between. Tonight, I went to see Program G of the Cool New York Dance Festival at White Wave in DUMBO. Eight pieces of considerably variable quality. It's all modern, of course.
The first was Roof Running A Through C by Jessica Bonenfant and Sara Greenfield. I will profess I am partial to this duo, as I've lit a few of Jessica's evening-length works. Her pieces are always interesting, even if one doesn't understand them at first. Usually, you kind of "get it" by the end of the evening - even the more abstract stuff. She loves to combine props, costumes, images, and video with her movement. (More on that later). I'd like to see the whole piece that Roof Running is an excerpt of.
Mediterraneo by Amos Pinhael was better than I expected. I am not a fan of solo pieces. I like very few of them; and the number drops when the piece is performed by the choreographer. This is dangerous territory, as the piece can easily slip into self-indulgent crap. To be sure, there are a lot of solos I have loved, but I can count on one hand the number of solos danced by the choreographer that I liked. Mediterraneo might be one of the good ones. It is just a man and a conch shell, but his movement is precise and inventive. The conch is a fairly sensuous item. And though, Amos' movement was in no way sexual, the resultant work is positively lewd at times. I enjoyed it very much.
Me vs. You, by Lynsey Peisinger, was a very enjoyable boxing/wrestling spoof. Comedic, light-hearted, and very physical. Very good.
I'll Take The Blame, by Jonathan Ciccarelli, was unfortunately one of those self-indulgent pieces of crap I'm so disenchanted with. I didn't see what the piece was about, what it was driving at, what it was trying to inspire. In fact, it was so uninspiring, I'm having a hard time remembering it at all. Yawn.
Collection of Shorts, by Andrea Gise, utilized four dancers, three sections, and an outstanding musical duo of guitarist and vocalist. (Matthew Lucas and Alexis Bronkovic) I'd like to see those two do a gig at a low-lit little bar somewhere. I'd come out to see just them! I am a huge fan of live music in dance theatre. It allows a level of interplay and spontaneity that canned music just can't deliver. The addition of the dancers to their music was very nice - lyrical and expressive, as you would hope modern dance to be; each section with its own tone and tenor, but holding with the other two sections as part of a whole. All in all, a well-crafted dance piece, of which Ms. Gise can be proud.
Holy Bones, by Mary-Clare McKenna. Holy shit. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. It was insufferable. It might have been meant to be a meditation in movement, but it just ... lacked meaning. You know your piece is in trouble when your props have no discernable meaning, your costume looks like hell, the music is more interesting than your movement, and the whole piece looked better under the dim lighting cues than the bright ones. Of the eight pieces tonight, this is the only one I think was a mistake to include in the festival.
Wake up...excerpt from The Goblin Boy, by Rob Davidson. Apparently, self-indulgent can apply to duets as well. This might have been good as the full piece, which I understand is the choregraphed version of a fairy tale Rob himself wrote (and published?), but as an excerpt it was just bad. The costumes really yanked me out of what could have been a beautiful piece of choreography; even a beautiful evocation of love-across-the-tracks, but the costumes were laughably high-schoolish in design and execution. More than once, I feared for the safety of the female dancer, Brittany Waldron, who played a leaf - or maybe it was a fairy. As for the music - well, if you're going to go to the trouble of writing a story, illustrating it, publishing it, turning it into an evening-length piece of dance theatre, and paying a costume designer to... well, the least you could do is commission some original music. Sorry, Rob - back to the drawing board.
The evening was capped off by Caught in a Shoelace and used six dancers. I rather liked this piece; it seemed to make a commentary on social interaction. Unfortunately, Sasha Soreff's costumes don't do anything for her piece - I found the dancer in jeans quite distracting. But overall the piece was interesting to watch, even if the ending is predictable. This is one piece that used its props to GREAT effect, the props being long loops of shoelace that bind and tangle the dancers together.
And we're back to Bonenfant's Rooftop Running. The point I want to make here is that Jessica is a master of ineraction between the body and the object - between movement and prop. Unlike other choreographers, her costumes aren't really costumes - in fact, they sometimes fail spectacularly at that end - but are actually props. The are USED and ABUSED in the course of a piece - coming off, being put back on, being swapped between dancers, used as scenery, etc. Likewise, she treats actual props as costumes oftentimes. Her use of images and video are also prop-oriented - they are never merely an illustration, but an intrinsic part of the choreography. I have even seen her use other dancers as props and, in at least one case in a previous piece, has used the lighting as a prop. (As a rule, Jessica's dances could as easily be done under daylight as theatrical lights. When she has a lighting note, I LISTEN, because it's IMPORTANT.) So to see her excerpt tonight, stripped down at it's most bare, was a mini-study in her vocabularly of props. The piece starts with Jessica and Sara in their underwear on stage. They then pull out costumes and make a whole section out of the struggle of dressing. Then there's an entire rooftop running section, then they undress and the piece ends. That's a very inadequate description of what goes on in her piece. You'll just have to see it for yourself.
---
It's been a while since we've had rain. We've had snow and ice, but not rain. It's been bitter cold the last couple of days, getting down into the teens, and I find I've pretty much acclimated to running in the 20s. But tomorrow will be in the 40s and Sunday - the Bronx Half - will hit the mid-50s! If the morning times are even in the mid-40s, I'm going to wear shorts to the race.
---
I shaved today for no good reason at all. I hate shaving, but I love the result, especially if I've waited three or four days. The best results come with a razor that's been used between 3 and 12 twelve times - no more, no less. I've been using products from The Art of Shaving and the results almost make shaving worth it.
---
Let's talk about primetime in the daytime. TNT is for housewives, basement dwellers, and the unemployed. Whoops, that last category is sounding suspiciously like me. I don't watch much daytime TV - I try to catch NY1 in the mornings, but lately, I've been glued to Las Vegas, the show about the fictitious Montecito Hotel in Sin City. It has some great characters and has employed a cast of actors one might have thought were past their prime, but have impressed me nonetheless, including James Caan and Tom Selleck. The cast also features a bunch of good-looking upo-and-comings who are worth keeping an eye on. Anyway, if this were on at night, I'd be a lot happier.
---
Dance is not the end-all and be-all of civilization, but it is one of the great fine arts; at leat it is when in the right hands. To be frank, there's a lot of bad dance out there. And the line between what's good and what's bad and what's merely so-so is very fine. It's also, traditionally, in the eye of the beholder.
I have a lot of experience with dance. I've seen the best and worst NY has to offer and I've lit a lot of what's in-between. Tonight, I went to see Program G of the Cool New York Dance Festival at White Wave in DUMBO. Eight pieces of considerably variable quality. It's all modern, of course.
The first was Roof Running A Through C by Jessica Bonenfant and Sara Greenfield. I will profess I am partial to this duo, as I've lit a few of Jessica's evening-length works. Her pieces are always interesting, even if one doesn't understand them at first. Usually, you kind of "get it" by the end of the evening - even the more abstract stuff. She loves to combine props, costumes, images, and video with her movement. (More on that later). I'd like to see the whole piece that Roof Running is an excerpt of.
Mediterraneo by Amos Pinhael was better than I expected. I am not a fan of solo pieces. I like very few of them; and the number drops when the piece is performed by the choreographer. This is dangerous territory, as the piece can easily slip into self-indulgent crap. To be sure, there are a lot of solos I have loved, but I can count on one hand the number of solos danced by the choreographer that I liked. Mediterraneo might be one of the good ones. It is just a man and a conch shell, but his movement is precise and inventive. The conch is a fairly sensuous item. And though, Amos' movement was in no way sexual, the resultant work is positively lewd at times. I enjoyed it very much.
Me vs. You, by Lynsey Peisinger, was a very enjoyable boxing/wrestling spoof. Comedic, light-hearted, and very physical. Very good.
I'll Take The Blame, by Jonathan Ciccarelli, was unfortunately one of those self-indulgent pieces of crap I'm so disenchanted with. I didn't see what the piece was about, what it was driving at, what it was trying to inspire. In fact, it was so uninspiring, I'm having a hard time remembering it at all. Yawn.
Collection of Shorts, by Andrea Gise, utilized four dancers, three sections, and an outstanding musical duo of guitarist and vocalist. (Matthew Lucas and Alexis Bronkovic) I'd like to see those two do a gig at a low-lit little bar somewhere. I'd come out to see just them! I am a huge fan of live music in dance theatre. It allows a level of interplay and spontaneity that canned music just can't deliver. The addition of the dancers to their music was very nice - lyrical and expressive, as you would hope modern dance to be; each section with its own tone and tenor, but holding with the other two sections as part of a whole. All in all, a well-crafted dance piece, of which Ms. Gise can be proud.
Holy Bones, by Mary-Clare McKenna. Holy shit. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. It was insufferable. It might have been meant to be a meditation in movement, but it just ... lacked meaning. You know your piece is in trouble when your props have no discernable meaning, your costume looks like hell, the music is more interesting than your movement, and the whole piece looked better under the dim lighting cues than the bright ones. Of the eight pieces tonight, this is the only one I think was a mistake to include in the festival.
Wake up...excerpt from The Goblin Boy, by Rob Davidson. Apparently, self-indulgent can apply to duets as well. This might have been good as the full piece, which I understand is the choregraphed version of a fairy tale Rob himself wrote (and published?), but as an excerpt it was just bad. The costumes really yanked me out of what could have been a beautiful piece of choreography; even a beautiful evocation of love-across-the-tracks, but the costumes were laughably high-schoolish in design and execution. More than once, I feared for the safety of the female dancer, Brittany Waldron, who played a leaf - or maybe it was a fairy. As for the music - well, if you're going to go to the trouble of writing a story, illustrating it, publishing it, turning it into an evening-length piece of dance theatre, and paying a costume designer to... well, the least you could do is commission some original music. Sorry, Rob - back to the drawing board.
The evening was capped off by Caught in a Shoelace and used six dancers. I rather liked this piece; it seemed to make a commentary on social interaction. Unfortunately, Sasha Soreff's costumes don't do anything for her piece - I found the dancer in jeans quite distracting. But overall the piece was interesting to watch, even if the ending is predictable. This is one piece that used its props to GREAT effect, the props being long loops of shoelace that bind and tangle the dancers together.
And we're back to Bonenfant's Rooftop Running. The point I want to make here is that Jessica is a master of ineraction between the body and the object - between movement and prop. Unlike other choreographers, her costumes aren't really costumes - in fact, they sometimes fail spectacularly at that end - but are actually props. The are USED and ABUSED in the course of a piece - coming off, being put back on, being swapped between dancers, used as scenery, etc. Likewise, she treats actual props as costumes oftentimes. Her use of images and video are also prop-oriented - they are never merely an illustration, but an intrinsic part of the choreography. I have even seen her use other dancers as props and, in at least one case in a previous piece, has used the lighting as a prop. (As a rule, Jessica's dances could as easily be done under daylight as theatrical lights. When she has a lighting note, I LISTEN, because it's IMPORTANT.) So to see her excerpt tonight, stripped down at it's most bare, was a mini-study in her vocabularly of props. The piece starts with Jessica and Sara in their underwear on stage. They then pull out costumes and make a whole section out of the struggle of dressing. Then there's an entire rooftop running section, then they undress and the piece ends. That's a very inadequate description of what goes on in her piece. You'll just have to see it for yourself.
February 5, 2009
Quick, hard two miler
Not the quickest or hardest, actually; but pretty good compared to my normal hill workout - a little less walking this time, and most of that was prompted by skirting construction or sheets of ice.
My routes are very clogged right now. Had to run in the street most of the way.
The hill route (i.e. same as Prospect Park 3.4 mile run, but without the flat stuff after the hills) consists of four uphills: 1) Very mild grade along 30th or 29th street between 4th and 5th aves. This comes early enough in the run that it is sometimes more difficult than the last of the hills. It is 200 meters long. 2) 200 meter medium grade along 24th street between 5th and 6th. I made it up this one today. 3) 200-meter steep grade along 23rd street between 6th and 7th. Had to walk the upper third of this one today. Then there's a mild downhill to 20th street. 4) 200 meter medium-steep uphill along 20th street between 7th and 8th avenues. This is the top of the Slope. I charged this one today, which I haven't done in a long time. Perhaps this means improvement.
Lungs: went from OK to closed up in the space of the first 400 meteres. Gawd. The cold hit and my small airways just shrank right up. Wheezed for most of the run. Bled from my nose, too. Wish I had brought my phone - I would have taken a picture of the minimalist Pollack I made on the salt-whitened pavement: one small green blob of phlegm surrounded by five bright red drops of blood. Managed to get more blood on my running clothes. They're going in the wash. Thankfully, I can wear shorts and much lighter-weight top for Sunday's half.
Running...is not pretty.
What IS pretty is my latest graphic work - advertising for a motorcycle rally:
Yeah, it's a take-off on Shepard Fairey's Obama artwork - but that's part of the strategy: being such a familiar set of colors should result in closer second looks.
Finally, I've moved my blog subscriptions from Bloglines to the Blogger dashboard - hopefully this means I'll be able to keep up with my favorite blogs a little easier. I like that you can subscribe publicly or anonymously. There's some blogs I follow that I don't want the writer to know I'm reading regularly.
Wait. That sounds creepy. That's not what I mean...
My routes are very clogged right now. Had to run in the street most of the way.
The hill route (i.e. same as Prospect Park 3.4 mile run, but without the flat stuff after the hills) consists of four uphills: 1) Very mild grade along 30th or 29th street between 4th and 5th aves. This comes early enough in the run that it is sometimes more difficult than the last of the hills. It is 200 meters long. 2) 200 meter medium grade along 24th street between 5th and 6th. I made it up this one today. 3) 200-meter steep grade along 23rd street between 6th and 7th. Had to walk the upper third of this one today. Then there's a mild downhill to 20th street. 4) 200 meter medium-steep uphill along 20th street between 7th and 8th avenues. This is the top of the Slope. I charged this one today, which I haven't done in a long time. Perhaps this means improvement.
Lungs: went from OK to closed up in the space of the first 400 meteres. Gawd. The cold hit and my small airways just shrank right up. Wheezed for most of the run. Bled from my nose, too. Wish I had brought my phone - I would have taken a picture of the minimalist Pollack I made on the salt-whitened pavement: one small green blob of phlegm surrounded by five bright red drops of blood. Managed to get more blood on my running clothes. They're going in the wash. Thankfully, I can wear shorts and much lighter-weight top for Sunday's half.
Running...is not pretty.
What IS pretty is my latest graphic work - advertising for a motorcycle rally:
Yeah, it's a take-off on Shepard Fairey's Obama artwork - but that's part of the strategy: being such a familiar set of colors should result in closer second looks.
Finally, I've moved my blog subscriptions from Bloglines to the Blogger dashboard - hopefully this means I'll be able to keep up with my favorite blogs a little easier. I like that you can subscribe publicly or anonymously. There's some blogs I follow that I don't want the writer to know I'm reading regularly.
Wait. That sounds creepy. That's not what I mean...
February 3, 2009
little bit sore
Well, my fantastic four miles of Sunday's run has taken its toll. My legs have felt sore and weak for two days now. Didn't run today; probably won't run tomorrow, either. The sidewalks and streets are full of slush and ice again.
But get this: the weather for Sunday's half-marathon is projected to be sunny and 54 degrees. 54 degrees! Upper 40s is shorts weather. I hope I don't pass out from the heat.
But get this: the weather for Sunday's half-marathon is projected to be sunny and 54 degrees. 54 degrees! Upper 40s is shorts weather. I hope I don't pass out from the heat.
February 1, 2009
Pretty solid 9-miler
The Flat Earth Society believes that at the extremities of Mother Disk is a vast, encircling girdle of sheer, unscalable ice walls, holding in the oceans and atmosphere. Today, I believe I found the Great Ice Ridge. It seems to be in Brooklyn, right next to the Millenium Skate Park. It is frozen solid, clear to the bottom - a good four inches thick in some places - and was today topped by a thin friction-negating layer of meltwater. Traversing this monstrosity safely required great amounts of time. I have circled this obstacle in blue on the graph.
Kindly note the strange qualities of the graph. Quite spiky in the first half, much less so in the second half. This is the sign of a workout at odds with itself. The main reason: wind. The second I turned off my street and onto 3rd avenue to head towards the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, I was hit with a headwind of good proportion. This headwind never let up. As you can see, I gave the first mile the ol' college try, but thereafter was reduced to walking every so often, as the wind turned running flats into something akin to running uphill. I was also experiencing the requisite tightness of the three-mile-warmup period and some shin splints. AND I was bleeding. My nose was bleeding and wouldn't stop - I had no choice but to use my gloves to wipe it away, but some got on my pants. My lungs were bleeding too - just spotting in what little mucous I could bring up, but it was definitely from the lungs.
Add to that the fact that my Prednisone-prompted pulse of pulmonary power is now evaporating (now that I'm off it). So I was quite distressed. The first four and a half miles of my run was difficult and not paying any dividends. I was getting nowhere fast, so to speak.
Well, I hoped that when I turned around at the bridge, the wind would turn from foe to friend, that I would have run through the shin splints and that my legs and lungs would have started cooperating. While my lungs never got great (the small airways are closing up again and it is difficult to get a deep breath again), but my legs were warmed up and pain-free, the bleeding had stopped, and the wind was indeed at my back for the second half of the run. My only real problem was that even without a hat and minimal winter clothing, I was actually overheating. (We got into the 40s today!)
So my run home was quite a quality workout - smooth and continuous with the exception of very short walk breaks so I could drink easily, re-traversing the Great Ice Wall, and a single pause for traffic. The entire last two miles were one long unbroken segment.
I tell you, if I can perform like this next Sunday - and stretch out the good half another four miles - then I'm going to have a GREAT race at the Bronx Half.
While I ran today, I listened to the episode of Phedippidations wherein Steve runs the 111th Boston Marathon in a nor'easter. Quite the podcast! It was neat being able to hear his struggles and triumph over adversity while I was struggling to continue smoothly in my second half and not drop to a walk.
Once home, I was starving. I had my Recoverite, a nutrition bar, a shower, dug out some more food, was disappointed to realize I'd forgotten to buy more mayo (I'm on a tuna-melt kick these days), wolfed down half a loaf of bread, etc etc. I pretty much haven't stopped eating since I got home. Sushi is tonight's dinner, and I'm topping it off with a very rare at-home beer for having done such a fine job out on the road today.
Kindly note the strange qualities of the graph. Quite spiky in the first half, much less so in the second half. This is the sign of a workout at odds with itself. The main reason: wind. The second I turned off my street and onto 3rd avenue to head towards the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, I was hit with a headwind of good proportion. This headwind never let up. As you can see, I gave the first mile the ol' college try, but thereafter was reduced to walking every so often, as the wind turned running flats into something akin to running uphill. I was also experiencing the requisite tightness of the three-mile-warmup period and some shin splints. AND I was bleeding. My nose was bleeding and wouldn't stop - I had no choice but to use my gloves to wipe it away, but some got on my pants. My lungs were bleeding too - just spotting in what little mucous I could bring up, but it was definitely from the lungs.
Add to that the fact that my Prednisone-prompted pulse of pulmonary power is now evaporating (now that I'm off it). So I was quite distressed. The first four and a half miles of my run was difficult and not paying any dividends. I was getting nowhere fast, so to speak.
Well, I hoped that when I turned around at the bridge, the wind would turn from foe to friend, that I would have run through the shin splints and that my legs and lungs would have started cooperating. While my lungs never got great (the small airways are closing up again and it is difficult to get a deep breath again), but my legs were warmed up and pain-free, the bleeding had stopped, and the wind was indeed at my back for the second half of the run. My only real problem was that even without a hat and minimal winter clothing, I was actually overheating. (We got into the 40s today!)
So my run home was quite a quality workout - smooth and continuous with the exception of very short walk breaks so I could drink easily, re-traversing the Great Ice Wall, and a single pause for traffic. The entire last two miles were one long unbroken segment.
I tell you, if I can perform like this next Sunday - and stretch out the good half another four miles - then I'm going to have a GREAT race at the Bronx Half.
While I ran today, I listened to the episode of Phedippidations wherein Steve runs the 111th Boston Marathon in a nor'easter. Quite the podcast! It was neat being able to hear his struggles and triumph over adversity while I was struggling to continue smoothly in my second half and not drop to a walk.
Once home, I was starving. I had my Recoverite, a nutrition bar, a shower, dug out some more food, was disappointed to realize I'd forgotten to buy more mayo (I'm on a tuna-melt kick these days), wolfed down half a loaf of bread, etc etc. I pretty much haven't stopped eating since I got home. Sushi is tonight's dinner, and I'm topping it off with a very rare at-home beer for having done such a fine job out on the road today.
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