Birthday Run

Lately it's been hard to get out the door to run. My hip has been acting up since the Turkey Trot and there's been chiropractor drama. As a result I've been in some pain even while just sitting around and walking. That combined with short cold days has made it very difficult for me to run regularly. 

Sometimes when I'm not following a specific program if something goes wrong it becomes too easy to come up with reasons not to run. One day it's the throat. The next day it's the low temps. Then it's a faulty alarm clock. Or the rain. And before I know it, days go by and it gets harder and harder. I find it better to not think about whether to run, but just run.

But to switch that back on sometimes I need a reason to run. Without a race in the calendar, I found that reason in a birthday party brunch run.

It was my birthday yesterday and these lovely ladies helped me start celebrating my birthday right.  

Birthday run, not in our birthday suits.

It was very cold and the loop felt rough. I felt very out of shape and almost can't believe how I managed the Jingle Bell Jog just last weekend. But it was great being out there with some of my favorite running buddies.

The plan started low key and grew naturally. I bumped into Jess while commuting and we both wanted to get together and run on a weekend and the first available weekend was my birthday. Then I met up with Lindsay at the Jingle Bell Jog. Add Jess and we had a party. The four of us hadn't run together since Summer Streets and I was very excited about running with them. Then a couple of days ago Samantha asked Linna and me if we wanted to go for a run that evening. That didn't work, but how about run & brunch?

Brunch not pictured. Gone. There was an amazing sweet potato waffle, though.

People who run in groups used to baffle me. When I started running part of what I loved about it was the simplicity of it. Lace up and go. Whenever, wherever. The idea of running with others and having to coordinate schedules, hurry to meet, wait for someone to show up, seemed like an unnecessary complication. One I most definitely did not want to deal with. I was happy to run alone. 

What I didn't realize then was that running, like so many other things in life, becomes even better when enjoyed with good company.

Thank you for a lovely birthday!

NYRR Jingle Bell Jog Recap

Runners looking fierce in their Jingle Jog best.

It's hard to take themed races seriously. Particularly one where runners wear jingles in their shoes. This was my third year running the NYRR Jingle Bell Jog in Prospect Park. The first year I ran it in icy weather in a snow man hat and knee high red socks with white trim.

I was very happy with my festive outfit combining form (cute hat and socks) with function (running top & tights.) Then I started running. The socks were uncomfortable and the puffy ball at the tip of my hat was not so fluffy as it bounced against my head with every step I took.

The second year I wore an elf hat which I'd stuffed high with packing paper so it wouldn't bounce against the back of my head. It rustled, but it allowed me to run. It also made me very easy to find since it stood about two feet high over my head. According to unsubstantiated reports, it looked very funny  bobbing above the crowd as I ran.

This year I wanted a PR. I couldn't find my elf hat, so I wore the santa hat to the park but checked it before the race.

NYRR made PR'ing easy by changing the race from a 4M to a 6k. I didn't beat my Turkey Trot pace, but  I did manage to beat my NYRR time and got under 9:00min/min. I'm excited about my next bib with a lower best time listed. That might be one of my favorite things about NYRR races - watching the listed best pace go down.

Another win: my brightroom photo. I've been working on my breathing and, through it, in perfecting a focused emotionless stare. Working on it.

See? Getting there!

Other fun stuff: got to hang out with Idiot Runner and Lindsay before the race, I got to say hi to Michelle during, got a post race bagel and a quick hello from Lauren, and brunch with Don after.

NYRR races for Jan-March are now open for registration so I got to register with my new and improved time. Unfortunately, since I waited until after I had a chance to lower them I got shut out of the Manhattan Half. So go sign up for races right away if you want to make sure you get your spots.

Sports Photography

The inaugural Brooklyn Marathon was this morning. It was a lovely event with the feel of a local 5k. It was so good that I found myself wishing I'd run it.

Since my duties as a marshal did not keep me 100% occupied, I decided to multitask by trying to capture pictures of the amazingly badass Samantha as she ran the marathon. Samantha had run the Staten Island Half with me and managing to get the PR that eluded me. Then she ran the New York City Marathon on Nov 6th. Since that must have been a piece cake, she decided to run another marathon two weeks later.

The Brooklyn Marathon course was multiple loops of the park. Since she was set to run by my eight different times, I was sure I'd be able to get at least a good picture of her.

Here she comes, here she comes!

Go, Sam, go! She's on the left. Ok That was a little too far. Next loop I'll try to catch her closer.

Not Samantha. I waited too long to snap this one.

Then I tried to capture the PPTC posse. It was fun to cheer loudly whenever a PPTC member ran by but this group was particularly exciting. They were running in formation for the first few loops and they looked formidable. 

Ok. They did look great. It's not my fault runner #245 blocked my view.

Then it was time to try to catch Samantha again.

There she is! On the far right. Still looking good on her nth loop.

There were several more attempts after that, but you get the idea.  I did manage to get a picture of her where she's not only in the frame but also clearly visible. But that was after she was done running after having completed her second marathon PR in November.

Congratulations!

Read her recap here.

New York City Marathon

It was the biggest and most fun block party in the city and not even a seriously compromised MTA scheduled would keep New York from mobilizing to cheer for its runners. I'd decided not to run it this year, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to participate.

First I'd be cheering, then running. Spectating on 1st Avenue where runners are starting to get tired but are still far from the finish line was inspiring. Strangers cheering for strangers. And then, I recognized some blue hair! It was Luau a fellow dailymiler. He stopped for a picture with my run twitter sign then went back to running.

I was cheering with a few members of our twitter book club, while cheering for other member of the same book club who were running. But cheering for the New York City Marathon is a needle in a haystack enterprise that fancy running tracking apps and congested networks haven't been able to conquer.

Most of the people I was hoping to cheer for must have run past me without my noticing. Fortunately  I did manage to spot the one friend I was determined to find: Lizz. My dear Lizz. Running buddy, broomballer, fellow Ragnar and PPTC teammate and member of our local neighborhood brunching mafia was running her first marathon and I wanted to help.

I'd peeled off my outer layers until I was dressed as a runner, leaving my bag behind. When Lizz got to where we were I jumped onto the course and we ran/walked through Upper Manhattan and the Bronx and back to Manhattan. At some point deep in the Bronx when Central Park felt like an impossibly faraway place, Lizz said in a half whimper "this is hard."

If it were easy, everyone would do it, was my response.

Running with Lizz.

Back in Manhattan, Amy was able to catch me banditing with Lizz.

Check out Luau's video for a fun on the ground perspective of the New York City Marathon. Congratulations to everyone who ran yesterday!

A walk in the woods

Running path

Sometimes it takes a walk to find a good run. I'd allowed myself to take a week to recover from the NYRR Staten Island Half. I've been biking instead and I've been allowing ideas of what's next to tumble freely in my head without coming up with a specific plan.

I'd been experiencing loop fatigue. It's a common ailment among city park runners and its most dangerous symptom is a reluctance to run.

I'd managed to avoid this last year while training for the ING New York City Marathon by staying away from running the main Prospect Park loop. Instead I'd come up with a variety of street routes. This year, as I work on developing a smooth pace, I've running most of my mileage on loops that don't include multiple corner stops, hopping over supermarket crates and dodging live chickens.

Unidentified mushrooms

Yesterday I went forging for mushrooms with Jess and though we didn't find what we were looking for, as we walked through Prospect Park exploring the ground I found myself seeing the park in a different way.

Everyone knows the Prospect Park time-space continuum expands when you're running through its backwoods. It turns out the same thing happens when you're walking. Though at first we didn't see any mushrooms. After  while space expanded and we started seeing them everywhere and we found paths I'd never taken before.  I was jealous of the runners on these paths.

Other unidentified mushrooms

I went out for mushrooms and came back with a run. I'm looking forward to finding that path by the water again on my run tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Staten Island Half Marathon

Sunrise over Manhattan

This was the view at the start. Something faraway you could see only if you squinted through the fog. Like my PR.

I'd been training for what I knew was an ambitious PR - I was looking to knock twenty minutes off my half-marathon time. Between my first and my second half marathons I chewed up thirteen minutes and spit them out nonchalantly by the side of the road. I figured if I worked hard enough I could get close to a two-hour half. I'd worked hard and gotten faster; the weekend before the Staten Island Half I ran a 5k and bested my time by two minutes.

As I walked into the corral last Sunday I was listening to the muppets playing Mahna Mahna and was excited to run my best half to date. I was missing my training partner Lindsay who had gotten hurt and Samantha who had a ferry difficult time making it to Staten Island but when the corrals collapsed and we started to move, I was ready to roll.

Pacing is not my strong suit and I have a tendency to get carried away so I was trying to focus on not going faster than a 9:14min/mi pace, but also no slower than 9:30min/mi. I managed to sort of stick to that and was having a great time until about mile 8 when my stomach decided the race was over.

With a high sun on course with no shade, temperatures creeping up near 80 and my stomach being squeezed from the inside out, I decided to slow down for a couple of miles. I thought if I rested from miles 8-10 by going down to my easy pace I'd cool down, recover, then race the last 5k of the course and still get about a 2:05 for a fifteen minute PR.

Slowing down didn't do the trick. I felt my body was either going to explode or I was going to pass out if I kept running. So I started run/walking hoping I'd start feeling better and be able to go back to running. At around mile 10 Samantha passed me and urged me to join her, I waved her on and wished her luck (she went on to an amazing breakthrough PR). Later, a fellow PPTC member from my speed group joined me. I tried to keep up with her but after a few yards I knew that would not be possible.

Please let me get out of here before I puke.

For the first eight miles I'd managed to stay on target for the PR I wanted and had even managed be about a minute and half under. As I shuffled along I kept re-calculating and trying to make deals with myself. I was done racing, but if I could stick to my easy pace I could still finish with a decent time. C'mon! You can still shave 10min! You can do five! But doing the old lady shuffle was all I could handle without turning into sludge and even then I had to take walk breaks. By the time I approached the finish line and heard Jenn, another PPTC member, cheering for me I was starting to feel disoriented enough not to understand why she was calling me.

It took me two days to recover from the wicked race hangover I got from this.

My final time was 2:19:09 for a not too glorious 51second personal record.

It's a bittersweet new personal record. It's not the one I wanted but getting so sick in a race feels like a sort of accomplishment. Maybe it's a rite of passage, or maybe it's the knowledge that I gave it everything I could give it that day.

It also means I still have a huge record ahead of me.  I'm looking forward to my next half-marathon and I plan to get to the starting line with the same Mahna Mahna energy.

Swagtastic

The Liz Padilla Memorial 5k is one of my favorite races. It's for a good cause so it get points right there and it's in Prospect Park. Sure, not exactly a flat course but it's where I run weekly so I have the home team advantage. I know where the turns are, when to speed up, when to slow down, and Zoo hill doesn't scare me. It's debatable how much of an advantage it is to know a course that consists of a loop where you'd have to work very hard to get lost, but still.

Secondly, it's an under-advertised quirky race with a small field and it's beginner friendly. On the walk to the start line one teenager told another: "Dude, there's a ton of people behind us! We can win this!" I managed to restrain myself from patting him on the head.

And lastly, besides the traditional ugly race tee (not too ugly this year) it's got the best swag bag. See exhibit A above. That's a real fabric tote in hunter green. It included: a recycle-this-not-that decal, a Road Id leaflet with a discount coupon, a miniature pen, a travel sized toothpaste & toothbrush kit, and a "Need a lawyer?" magnet. Who doesn't want one of those for their fridge?

But that's not all!

There was also a packet of BBQ popchips (gone!), a Vitamin Water bottle, a Butterfinger which is something I've never tried, a plastic cup from Deno's Wonder Wheel in Coney Island, and a John Mayer cd. Isn't he pretty?

In past years I've traded CDs with other friends running since there tends to be a nice assortment including holiday music, but I didn't have a chance to do that this year.

This wast the last item in the bag: there were three Rebootizer packets. It doesn't have anything to do with booty but it's supposed to Reboot you. It's a weirdly floppy package with water at the bottom, powder on top - a squeeze, shake, tear and drink situation. According to the information on the back it helps "prevent the after-effects of food and drink over-indulgence by supporting your body's natural detoxification process." Made in Spain, it looks like it's mostly water, Vitamin C and few easily recognizable and pronounceable herbal supplements (dandelion root, licorice root, angelica root, etc...) For best results, it says, drink before bed or after a meal.

This reminds me of a diet obsessed aunt. While I was growing up, there was a period of time when if she overate, she'd have two clementines on top of that. She swore it helped her.

Since I missed my chance to have it after brunch - not saying whether I missed my chance to overindulge or to try the Rebootizer after the celebratory post-race meal - I might try it before going to be last night. The question is, should I eat a lot to give it a fair try?