Change of Pace

So what do those of us who are Monday-Sunday running loggers do with New Year's Day this year? It obviously shouldn't count towards 2005 mileage, but it is the last day of the last week of the year. And it can't count as part of my mileage for the first week of 2006, since I've started to count this week's mileage as of today. Poor orphan miles. I guess I'll just have to take a stand and say that since the miles were part of the NYRR Midnight New Year's run, that really, for all practical purposes, fell on Saturday night (12/31/05) as opposed to what any sane person would categorize as Sunday morning (1/1/06). There. That makes everything much simpler. I guess it's like taxes. There are some things you can claim on either the past year's taxes or on the next year's...the important thing is simply that you don't try and claim it on both!

So, the final count for 2005 is officially 1,832 miles. It's a far piece from the big 2,000 I had aspirations of reaching, but before I could start beating myself up about it too much, I thought to compare it to my 2004 mileage of 1,122 and even more starkly, my 2003 mileage of 472! And I was wondering where all these PR's were coming from?? I'm really wishing now that I had an accurate count for the years preceding those. I barely even kept track of my mileage during the months (or more often weeks) of my marathon training. In hindsight, it's quite shocking that I've run as well as I have over the years. I think I must have run that 3:09 at Boston 2002 on less than 500 miles for the year! It's tempting to shake my head and lament the waste of talent, but since I've finally started to catch on to the value of training, there's really nothing to be done but keep it up and see where it can take me in the here and now. It really is exciting. I just need to stay focused through the winter and not let fatigue get the best of me.

I've got another brief winter getaway coming up this week, which is nice in terms of escaping from the cold winds and freezing rain, but experience has shown that it can be challenging to fit in the miles while on vacation. I'm really hoping to finally get back over 30 miles for the week, which should be eminantly doable. Now, I just have to actually do it.

I went to Aruba and all I could think about was Natalie Holloway. I ran some thirty miles on that little island and there are definitely some desolate and forsaken places where it's easy to imagine bad things happening. If you never left the manicured grounds of your luxury hotel and the long strip of white sand and turquoise water on the west side of the island, you'd be left wondering how on earth a girl could just disappear into thin air here, but it only takes a five minute jog to see the rougher side of Aruba, where rocky sands might easily hide a body and harsh winds could easily cover a few panicked screams.

Other than that though, the place was lovely. Palm trees and cacti, living together in peace and harmony. I can't say that I recommend it as a vacation destination...it's just too damn expensive. Like I said though, I got in a decent run nearly every morning and finished the week with 33 miles under my belt. Between the swimming and the horseback riding, I did a fair amount of cross training as well, so aside from the worrisome twinges that I'm still feeling on my right shin, I feel ready to start piling on the miles again. I guess I'll know by the end of the month if a fast Spring marathon is a realistic goal for me.

It was actually quite nice running in the park this morning since the temperature was fairly mild and I hadn't been a big fan of Aruba's 100% humidity. I feel obligated to put in a little public service announcement here though, as I returned from vacation to some upsetting news about a friend from work. One of my colleagues is a committed bike commuter who rides to and from the office every day through the park. On Wednesday morning, two runners stepped abruptly into the bike lane and he was forced to break hard and swerve around them. He ended up hitting the same patch of ice that they were trying to avoid and crashed hard, shattering both his femur and his tibia. Neither runner stopped to help (though later runners did) and he lay on the pavement in near freezing temperatures for more than half an hour. The saving grace to all of this was that he was wearing his helmet and that probably saved his life. Now he's in the hospital and facing the prognosis of not being able to put any weight on his right leg for a year.

So, those of us who run in parks and share space with bikers, please remember to look carefully before you switch lanes and if you must run with headphones on, be all the more cautious. Those of you who bike, remember to ride defensively and be prepared to react to off leash dogs and careless pedestrians and always wear a helmet. Okay, I'm done lecturing, but as you could tell, I was definitely shaken by the sight of an active, healthy person struck down by a split-second misfortune.

It's a sad thing, I know. I've turned into a once-a-week blogger. I guess that's better than being a once-a-week runner, but truth be told, I've also been skipping more of my morning runs that I care to admit. What do you expect though when I don't have a reliable internet connection at home and I'm not supposed to do any of my blogging at work...what options does that leave me?

Anyway, back to the running. Despite being away on vacation and the onslaught of bitter cold since my return, I've actually managed to start off the year with more mileage than usual. Then again, looking at all those January zeros in my old running logs...this isn't saying much.

The last few days were really cold ones here in New York, so kudos to everyone who braved the ice and wind to get in a few hard fought miles. I squandered the relatively mild weather on Saturday by not starting my run until 7 'o clock at night, when the mercury plunged and the sky opened up. I was lucky to have good companionship for that ordeal, but physically, I was miserable. Sunday however, I was on my own. I'd only run Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, so I had no choice but to squeeze in a longish run to match my mileage of the previous week. Brutal, I tell you. I'll get no sympathy from the Minnesotans out there, but that was a particularly hellish hour and fifty-two minutes of my life. It was actually during that time that I decided to name my next blog entry That which does not kill us makes us wish we were dead, but time apparently numbs the pain since today that seemed unduly negative. I won't go as far to say that I enjoyed the experience, but now that it's over, I will grant that it might serve as an exercise in will power. Just this morning, when I was doing mile repeats, I considered skipping the last one. Then I thought, well...at least it's not as bad as it was Sunday, and that was enough to motivate me to do one last loop through the windy Harlem hills. Enough musing on winter weather though...I'll leave you today with another photo from my Aruba trip. If I'm not going to post everyday, at least I can leave you with a pretty picture to look at.

Sunday - ran 7 miles in a driving rain...felt miserable, hated life
Today - ran 7 miles in a driving rain...felt refreshed, rejuvenated

I'd forgotten that I really rather enjoy running in the rain. It's just a matter of dressing appropriately for the weather I guess. I was actually dressed too warmly this morning, but I figure that whatever added stresses that puts on my body just count towards the conditioning process. It's so peaceful when the park is almost empty and all the hard edges of the world are softened by the rain and the fog. The other runners that you do see give you little conspiratorial nods as they splash past, as if to say "We're the tough ones. We're the ones who defy the sweet, seductive temptation of the snooze button every morning to brave the cold and the rain and the winds. We are the ones who will prevail come spring. The age group trophies will be ours!"

Well, maybe not quite. But still, the little companionable headbobs of acknowledgement are nice. And I feel better knowing that I was one of them today and not a lazy lump of atropying muscle and rapidly deteriorating O₂ capacity.

After a month of putting great effort into running at a painfully slow pace, I'd started to wonder if I was ever going to feel fast again. I've gained a little bit of weight, though only a few pounds, but I feel heavy and plodding under all those layers of fleece and thermoprene as I shuffle around endless loops of the Central Park bridle path. Thursday's run gave me a little reason for optimism though, when I ventured out to the park dressed entirely too lightly and rather than go back and get another layer, I decided to just pick up the pace in order to shorten the term of my discomfort. I know I've been running inordinately slowly of late, but still...I finished my usual 7 mile loop a full eight minutes faster than usual.

Yesterday I planned to run the Manhattan half as an easy training run with my friend Claire, but I couldn't get in touch with her in the days before the race to plan where we were going to meet up. I looked around for her when I got there, but I hadn't really left much time to just wander around aimlessly looking for tall, blonde Englishwomen. In the end, I just squeezed into the start chute where I could and decided to stick with the "easy training run" plan for at least a bit and then see how I felt after eight miles. Over the first few miles I saw various runners I know and commiserated with them about their latest injuries and training woes. Julio from my team tried to convince me that he had a knee injury and was going to run at 7:30 pace, but maybe that translates differently in Ecuadorian since he was soon disappearing into the distance (as usual) at sub-7 pace.

I settled into a comfortable rhythm at just over seven pace, and like I'd planned, picked up the pace with five miles left to go: 7:04 . 6:52 . 6:52 . 6:52 . 6:24 I'm usually so burned out by that point in a half, it felt really nice to float through those final miles at such healthy clip. I ended up with a chip time of 1:32:41 which is respectable even if I had been racing the thing, but as it is, I feel really good about what that means for my fitness level right now.

The mileage goal for this week was to hit 40 miles, but after allowing myself to sleep in and not run on three mornings this past week, that seemed like it might be a little bit out of reach. But no, I dug deep and got out there for a substantial long recovery run today to wind up with 42 and a half for the week. In my mind, Boston is definitely out of the picture for this spring, but I'm feeling good about working on my speed for a while and running some fast times at shorter distances. Then I guess I'll have to weigh all the pros and cons of the various fall marathons and see what makes sense to aim for at that point. That will also give my body and brain plenty of time to have recovered from my last effort in June. Maybe some people can handle running umpteen marathons a year, but I think I've finally recognized that I can not. (Better luck next time Duncan. I think you should have looked at Miami as a tempo workout all along...who tries to run a fast marathon in Florida??)

Now this is a New York thing....and possibly a Toronto and L.A. thing as well, depending where in those cities you live and run...but I can pretty well guarantee that you suburbian runners don't have to deal with this too often: movie shoots getting in the way of your preferred running path. Most of the time it's not such a terrible inconvenience. The Central Park bridle path is apparently a popular place to shoot movies, as is the reservoir path itself. Dustin Hoffman's Marathon Man is the only movie that immediately comes to mind where I've seen the path in a scene, but it's definitely a memorable one. There's usually some underpaid production assistant with a giant walkie-talkie and an even bigger chip on his shoulder standing guard in the middle of the path.

"You can't go through here."
"Oh. What's being filmed?"
"A movie."
"Yeah, the big cameras and light reflectors clued me into that one."
"Anyway, you can't be here. You have to go around."

Usually it's not that big a detour, but we're runners. Wouldn't we just fit in as part of the NYC scenery if they did let us through?

Of course, there always is a little temptation to stop and stretch that pesky ITB in hopes of getting a look see at someone famous. The last film set I saw was right in front of the Dakota apartment building while I was running with my boyfriend. He thought it was funny to say softly, "Look, there's Brad Pitt!", which I thought was dorky, but I have to admit, it was kind of amusing to see everyone around us kind of perk up to see.

I know we New Yorkers are supposed to be all jaded and unimpressed by celebrity, but still, it kinda is one of the cool things about living here that you get to see famous people now and again. And I do actually see them on occasion...for a while I was half convinced that Ethan Hawke was stalking me, I saw him so many times...but never have I seen anyone vaguely recognizable while running past a film shoot. Closest I came was seeing a director's chair with Kenneth Lonergan's name on it. According to imdb, he's working on a movie called Margaret with Anna Paquin and Matt Damon. If I end up seeing it once it comes out, I'll have to remember to look for the scene on my running path.

photo credit: Catherine K. Whyte / Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting