I am encompassed by failure

Ever have one of those weeks? It seemed like I couldn't catch a break. I was surrounded by failure on all sides, not only failure by others, but by myself as well.

Failure by others...well, many examples, but perhaps the ones that aggravated most were that it took Staples three tries to deliver the right desk - and I was all the time waiting for the desk so I could move all my files and desk items from the old apartment. The other thing is that my all-in-one printer failed - completely. It died. I get on the phone with warranty support and find myself in India. Not only that, but over an hour and fifteen minutes I was transferred to FIVE different departments. I finally hung up with the understanding that a new - or at least working - printer was on its way. What arrives? A new power module for the printer and that's all! And guess what? The printer STILL doesn't work! I'm so mad I can't see straight.

Then there was my own failure. Despite constant work and getting only six hours of sleep each night, I couldn't get everything done that I needed to this week in the new house. There are simply too many things to do. I did make a lot of progress upstairs, including the refinished tub and improved shower and sink plumbing and whatnot. Well.... I could go on and on, but this is a running blog, not a Myspace page.

So. I failed in running, too. I got in only two midweek runs, both shortened. Out of a week that should have had 18 to 24 miles of midweek workouts, I got in a whopping six. And the thing is I felt terrible the whole week. The moving was taking its toll on my muscles and energy and even these few short runs were awful. As of yesterday I was really getting upset with myself and the way things are going.

But perhaps today's long run will break the cycle and turn things around. I don't know why it is, but for the weekend long runs, I find it almost easy to get up a couple hours earlier than normal and get to the park and do my thing. I really like the whole ritual of it, I suppose. Get up, pee, eat some breakfast...yadda yadda yadda. Make sure I've got HEED, Recoverite, powersnot, Enduralytes, ipod...yaddayaddayadda. Train to Central Park, walk to Boathouse, use facilities, stretch yadda yadda yadda.... You get the picture. I was up at 5:30 this morning and finally running at about 7:30. Good timing. I did everything right physically, including over-hydrating the night before and making sure I got my Enduralytes and Hammer Gel going on a good schedule.

And you know what? It paid off. Like it almost always does. Today's 12 miles weren't the fastest I've ever run, but I wasn't trying for speed; just a slow, steady twelve miles. I was really enjoying the moderate temperatures and sunshine. I took very few breaks of any kind; just pitstops for more gel, one for stretching, and one to figure out what the hell was going on at the pool.

Turns out, there was a triathlon about to happen! When I passed the pool at mile two, they hadn't yet started. By the time I was running my fourth mile, I was being passed by some very buff men and women on some very fast bicycles. I reversed my roiute when I got to bikers' bench and took some more Enduralyte and Hammer Gel. I was still good on HEED, much to my surprise. While running clockwise (against the flow), I enjoyed watching the cyclists pound out their 12 miles. Up about mile nine, I got into the marked off section where the athletes were doing a 5K leg (I think this was a sprint tri; I'm not sure). It was awesome to be running with all these gifted athletes. It was quite an education. I grant I'd already put in nine miles, but these guys were fast, even for a 5K. On the other hand...some of the back of the pack athletes were still on bicycles and sort of struggling along. They had higher numbers.

It was a particular treat to be able to stave off one of the athletes as we hit one of the steeper, longer harlem hills on his return leg. I could hear him right behind me and he would have passed me except we hit that hill - and my pace remained good and strong and I guess he had to slack up a bit. Anyway, I kept the lead until the crest of the hill, shortly after which he passed me. I assume he was using the downhill to lengthen his stride and get some time saved, and I wasn't bothering to vary my pace much.

Overall pace for the day was 10:20 miles. One of my miles is up in the 11:something range and that threw a lot off. Most miles were just shy of the 10:00 range and I'm happy with that. Amazingly enough, my fastest mile came in mile 10 - the Harlem Hills - where I punched out an even 10:00. Maybe the racing boost helped!

I'm a little sore in a couple of joints and I'll have to keep an eye on that. I'm taking ankle weights with me to Chicago to get back to my TKEs in earnest. But I experienced no real tightness in the park and that is a good sign. Also, I didn't hit the wall, like last weekend. The gel and enduralytes and HEED paid off. Total run time: 2 hours, 5 minutes. To PR at the NYC Half-Marathon, I need to lose over 40 seconds per mile...but somehow I think that's possible. After all, MOST of my miles were 10:00 or thereabout anyhow and I wasn't pushing the pace, like I do in a race. I believe I have a good shot at tying my PR or even beating it by a couple of minutes, if everything goes right. Well, we'll see.... it's two weeks away.

I am sore in a good way

NYFlyGirl left a comment that completely puzzled me ("nice job-way to smash that PR!!"). That is, uuntil I looked closer at my spreadsheet and re-sorted the pivot table (why the pivot table can't sort itself and spit out the PRs page correctly I'll never know). As it turns out, yesterday's five-miler was the first 5 mile race I've run since my VERY FIRST road race, a Turkey Trot in Prospect Park two years ago. It seems like forever... But can that be? Sure there've been a lot of 4 milers and 10Ks, but I guess a 5 mile race is pretty rare. And yeah, I did PR. Heh. Still, I've got to get faster than a 9:40 pace if I'm going to break 2 hours at Staten Island in October.

My quads are killing me today. Fortunately, I have plenty of opportunity to move and squat and bend and stretch and lift with them and work out the kinks, since I'm still continuing the moving process. This involves numerous handyman type jobs and a couple of trips to Home Depot. I am proud of my electrical and plumbing skills; we'll shortly see if my painting skills are up to snuff. By the way, bathtub resurfacing proves it: you really can shine shit!

One of my tasks today was to get to Home Depot and pick up various items, including four pallets that will go in the back of the garden for the shed to sit on. I rented a truck there to get them and all my other stuff home with. I have found that the two people running the tool rental desk at Home Depot are the only non-retards in the store - they approach things intelligently. Faced with two customers needing the same truck - one of whom had pre-loaded the truck in hopes of "claiming" it before handing over the credit card - they asked where we were going and how much stuff we were delivering. I won: I'm less than a mile away and had one trip to make. The other guys, who spoke no English, had also overloaded the truck with fifty 60-pound bags of sand and concrete. the truck can only handle 1500 pounds. The Home Depot gods made them unload the entire truck and hand it over to me, whereupon I loaded up my stuff, dropped it off at home, and had the truck back in 30 minutes. Then, for the second time, they had to reload the truck with quickcrete. One of the rental employees was standing watch as I left by bicycle, probably to make sure they didn't overload the truck again. Sometimes, not being a retard has its privileges.

Tomorrow will have to be another early-rising day. I have to get in six miles before 8 a.m. I am expecting two deliveries and these aren't the kind you can just leave a note saying "leave between door and screen door" or anything. It's nice that Staples delivers furniture for free, but their delivery policy is pretty strict.

I am getting there. Hope & Possibility 5 miler

One step at a time. One thing, one item at a time. It is such a long process and I have so little energy to spare.

That's how I feel about moving. (Special thanks to Charles, Wayne, & Melissa who helped with the big furniture today.) I'm almost done; just some leftover stuff to sort out. I'm not moving anything I'm going to sell or discard.

One step at a time - the long long road to fitness - it's all about training. And apparantly I AM getting there, much to my surprise. Having foregone the marathon long training run #1 yesterday, I opted to go run the Hope & Possibility 5 miler today. I'd moved to my new digs Friday night and had been feeling bad for the last several days. Saturday morning, I felt good for the first time in a while, but not 100% And, somehow, I felt a lot more motivated by the thought of a more democratic run - and one that I could finish - rather than a bunch of elitist marathon trainees all running 20 miles while I'd be dropping out at 11 or 12. Turns out it was a good decision.

I put in a 6-mile loop as a warmup before the race. The six miles were good - damn good. Steady, even pacing except for a handful of coughing fit slowdowns, but picked up easily. Legs were good to go, even eager, from the very first step. No pain. Lungs cooperated nicely. Weather was also cooperating. In fact, I could hardly believe how well the run was going. I wound up the loop arriving at the race start line a full ten minutes earlier than I'd planned. That was a surprise in itself, since I didn't feel like I was pushing it that hard.

Unfortunately, that left a good 20 minutes before the start of the race - time to cool down too much in the legs. I'd ended the loop drenched in sweat and made sure to ditch my shirt and pin my race bib to my shorts. It was quite refreshing breezing through the park shirtless. I saw one other runner I'd classify as shirtless - a woman. But while other women were wearing sports bras at least, she was just...in her bra. Not the same woman from a few months back, believe me. How odd.

Anyway, the race started well and I had time to take in the sights of all the Achilles participants, which included a heavy contigent of Iraq vets whose limbs were exploded off in the war, and the vets' supporters and families. In fact, a number of people wearing the olive drab t-shirts were kids - running the whole 5 miler! And man those little humans are fast. Anyway, I was amazed at how many guys run on prosthetics, especially those large hook-shaped spring ones built specifically for running. One vet, as a matter of fact, was on TWO of them. It took me some time to catch him; I was deeply impressed.

The race went on and all I'd had to eat so far was some yogurt in the morning and a whole bunch of HEED, of which I was now out. With a mile and half left, I believe I hit the wall, for the first time ever. It was as if Obi-Wan Kenobi had suddenly managed to disconnec the power couplings. I think I even heard that distinctive, falling BWOOOOooooooop sound. And just like that, I was running on empty. My pace fell off, though I managed to keep going without having to walk. And, too, I picked it up a little bit in the last quarter mile. But still, my last mile split was atrocious. I should have brought my Hammer gel!

Results: 631st out of 1289, 48:23 net time, 9:41 pace. Not too many other races in my record with a pace that good (Last one was my awesome Staten Island Half) and my age graded percentile was 44.8%, my third-highest ranking ever. In short, this was a DAMN fine performance and though I wonder how it would have turned out had I run the five-miler first and the six-miles last, I don't regret my decision - it shows me what I can manage even after an hour of running already completed.

So. I need to get more disciplined about my running schedule...but I'm realizing that running six days a week just isn't possible, maybe not even five days a week. I can only handle so much mileage. But if I can keep up six-mile runs during the week and keep lengthening the long runs on schedule, I'm going to have a fine experience at la marathone.

now I've heard everything

How come I haven't heard of the 3100 mile race until now?? And get this: it's right here in New York, and it's almost done. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the runners are already through with it as of this writing.

We've been hearing all kinds of press on Dean Karnaze's Endurance 50, sponsored by North Face, taking in 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days - all organizes, all official, and all timed. Turns out, this is not a unique enterprise. Some guy named Sam is also doing it and is doing it right now.

I'd also like to point out a blog I stumbled upon, 28-year-old Angie's blog and especially her inspiring entry on completing her first ultra.

Apparently there is a whole world of ultrarunners out there that I have only been marginally aware of - but it appears to be growing, fast. I know Beast is considering an ultra for his next big goal. And if I don't get absolutely crippled doing NY Marathon, perhaps a 50K isn't out of the question for me...

I am humidified

The last three days have zipped by in a blur. Too much travel; too much load-in; too much unfamiliar hotel food. I ended up crashing yesterday at a little before 9 p.m. and didn't get up until after 8 this morning. Then it was off to a production meeting, then to the airport....

Let me back up. Got to Nashville, finally. Didn't get up and run Monday morning, using it as a rest day. Load in went for about 12 hours. (It is somewhat cool to see this large set I've been designing for four months finally become reality; but still, corporate shows are soulless.)

I did get up at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in order to go run. I decided to step outside - the REAL outside - for my run, instead of the available treadmills. (Gaylord Opryland is a large and amazing hotel - you can go outside to go to the convention center and not be outside, but rather in one of three giant atriums, complete with millions of plants of a stunning variety, a river, waterfalls, and islands.) So I got out before the sun came up and it was:



Yes, 76 degrees, 87% humidity. It was like walking into the proverbial sponge. Nevertheless, I managed to snap out a quick 5K before I absolutely had to be back for a shower, therapy, and resumption of load-in. I felt I kept up a good pace and wish I could confirm that, but, unfortunately....

MY NIKE THINK BROKE! I don't think it's anything I did, but rather the airport's x-ray machines. Or something. All I know is, my bag was searched by the TSA on the way to Nashville, and it was a royal mess. And now my iPod can't find the Nike accelerometer on my shoe. :( Guess I'll be headed back to the store to see if they'll replace it.

Didn't run this morning, obviously. Hell, after two solid days of being on my feet, I could barely get out of bed this morning, much less contemplate running. I can't believe how much my legs hurt, from the toes to the knees. And it's not like I was one of the crew running around with screwguns and heavy scenery - I'm the designer: it was my job to walk around knowingly and keep an eye on things. Literally. If something came up that needed tweaking, I was to direct that tweaking. There's lots of on-site tweaking, and some of it was quite creative and really energized the crew. Well...I'm glad I'm done. Can't wait to see the pics of the show.

And tomorrow, I get to tech a show I've only seen one stumbling run-through, in a space I've never been in, with a light plot I didn't design, with a magic sheet I don't even have right now. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.