The Next Step

In New York City today.  It was a pretty nice morning around 68 with some humidity.  I went for a easy run in Central Park.  It a little bit of a challenge getting there just waiting on lights and dodging people.  Luckily I only had about 1/2 mile to get to the park.  Once I got to the park it was pretty neat.  There were hundreds of people running, biking and roller blading.  It is amazing that this place exists inside this crazy busy city.  I can see why so many people go there for a little bit of a chance to get away from it all.  I did the outer loop of the park and added a few smaller loops to it.  One thing that suprised me is there are some pretty good hills in the park.  This is the same route they did for the Olympic Trials Marathon so I am even more impressed with Ryan Hall's performance.  Another thing that I wasn't expecting is that if you get off on some of the side paths you can get turned around since it is hard to see out of the park where you are at.  Hopefully I can squeeze another run in there tomorrow now that I got my bearings.

68:23

Ran in Central Park again but did around a 4 mile tempo run.  I didn't have an exact distance so just based it off of time.  The weather was pretty nice around 70 with some humidity.  It felt good to be running fast in Central Park.  There were a lot of people running and it is good when running fast to have people to chase so I just set my eyes on someone ahead and focused on catching them and passing them.  This made for a very nice tempo effort.  My legs did feel a little tired.  Probably from walking the streets of New York all day yesterday.

60:08

Just an easy run on the same route through Central Park.  It was a little cooler today (68, less humid) and a nice morning for a run.  Legs still feel heavy but have been doing a ton of walking around the city so no suprise about that.  This is our last day in New York and I am ready to get back to the slower pace in Indiana.  It is fun seeing all of the people out running in Central Park but I will take the back roads of Indiana over this any day. 

66:15

We stopped on the way back home and spent the night in a hotel on PA so just got up and did a quick 5 miles on the treadmill.  I wanted to get an early start home so I was glad to be able to get in some running.  Overall I am pretty happy with my running during vacation.  I really was hoping to just maintain my fitness and not miss many days.  Hopefully, when I get back home I can pick up the mileage and the training.

40:10

Good to be back home.  Woke up to hard rain this morning put off the run until later.  Ended up not running until late afternoon since it was my daughter's Birthday and had lots of activities going.  I felt very sluggish starting off and was very suprised when my first mile was around 8:00 because it felt like I was hardly moving.  This was pretty much the story for the rest of the run.  I didn't feel very good but the pace was good.  It was really just my legs that felt tired.  My breathing was real easy.  Kind of a strange run.  I threw in 6 x 100 m strides at the end to see if it would make the legs feel better.

63:03

Nice morning for a long run (64, very overcast).  I felt a little stiff and sluggish this morning starting out sort of like yesterday.  However, today after a couple of miles started to feel better.  Because of this the first couple of miles were very slow.  I settled into a good pace after loosening up and felt pretty good.  Since I was feeling good I picked up the pace over the last 6 miles and ran the last 4 between 7:30 and 7:45.  Ending up being a good run.  I am starting to feel stronger on these long runs so I will try to stretch them out over the next few weeks.

2:11:06 (8:12 avg)

PM

Went for a 20 mile bike ride with a friend.  It was a pretty easy pace but my legs felt the effects from this mornings run.