The Long Run

No running again today (like yesterday).  Making sure to get some walking in (10,000 steps on garmin 630).

Stella is getting walked a little more.

Chronic dead-legs feeling might be starting to fade slightly.

Push-ups: 44

5.4 mi, 53:28, 9:54 avg

One last taper run before the marathon.  Legs still feeling dead but  maybe just a tiny bit better with the time off.  Ran with Joe and Jamie, nice morning out.

(I forgot to do my pushups).

No running today.

Flew to NYC, my brother Jim picked me up at the airport and we drove to packet pickup, then checked into our hotels, had lunch and then some "light" sightseeing which turned into 18,000 steps or 8.7 miles according to the garmin 630.

Highlights of the walking were Rockefeller Center, Trump Tower, Central Park (where a small crowd of people were fascinated with a black cat sitting high up on a rock), and then attended mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  The priest who said mass was going to run in the race this year, his second marathon despite having two artificial knees.  He invited all the runners up to the altar for a blessing (hundreds came up, perhaps even 1000, while the organist did a stirring rendition of "Fanfare for the Common Man" - which previously I only knew of the Emerson Lake & Palmer version used on CBS Sports Spectacular).

5.47 mi, 54:21, 9:56 avg

First run back after the marathon.  Ran with Jamie in the neighborhood, possibly Joe also.

6.38 mi, 59:11, 9:16 avg

Solo run from my house, out to Longleaf and up and down Starkey Blvd a little bit.  I think it was a pretty good run.

3.09 mi, 28:47, 9:20 avg

Evening "hump day hustle" run with the Wednesday night crew at Longleaf.  I brought Stella which she really loved - both the run itself and all of the attention.  I need to try and make it here with Stella more often.

3.14 mi, 28:32, 9:06 avg

Solo run from my house to just past the water fountain.

9.06 mi, 1:26:15, 9:31 avg

Longer run with Joe and Jamie from the neighborhood and then picking up Daisy when we got to Longleaf where we all ran about 5 miles together.  Total of 9 miles with the two miles each way to Longleaf.  First run in a while with all four of us at the same time, just missing Cynthia today.

3.31 mi, 33:39, 10:11 avg

Chilly (for Florida) morning at about 48 degrees.   Out and back to golf course water fountain.  Sluggish feeling legs, maybe a step back after Saturday's 9 mile run and still feeling it.

push-ups: 55

3.21 mi, 29:54, 9:18 avg

Way, way behind on blogging because I keep procrastinating in writing my NYC marathon race report (which I did somewhere between ok and not bad for not the best training with a time of 3:49 and a positive split of over 11 minutes, in any event thankful I can run a full marathon and also be in top 20% of such a huge race).

Ran from my house towards the new Trinity park but not all the way there since  I was only doing three miles today.  Temps were in low 60's.  My chronic dead legs showed a subtle sign of improvement today vs yesterday's run.

push-ups: 56 (not quite keeping to doing this each day, but I am picking up where I left off after missing a day, I think I should be over 60 by now).

5.4 mi, 50:51  ,9:25 avg

Ran with Joe and Jamie in the neighborhood.  Legs felt ok. I was struggling a little bit the first half of the run but felt pretty good on the second half.  Forgot to restart my  watch at one point so I'm estimating the distance, but it's pretty much the same 5.5ish mile route with nothing added on.

warm up: 0.81 mi, 8:45, 10:45

Race: 3.11, 20:42, 6:39 avg

I was very apprehensive about this race as I didn't think I could move my legs anywhere close to what I'd consider my 5k pace.  Also, it was supposed to be raining and in the high 60's.  I wasn't sure if I'd be cold from the drizzle or warm from the humidity.  But, I was in for a pleasant surprise.  I picked up Thomas from Jenny's house about 5:30 and we got down there just after 6:00, parking at my favorite "secret" spot near the start line.  It was early and still dark when we first got there so we hung out for a bit and then I took a trip to the POPs.  Just after 6:30 we headed toward the start.  I did some warm up and Thomas did his own thing.  When I got back he had met up with a couple of the cross country kids (Spencer and Logan).  I ran into Dixie (I think I had not seen him since the wedding).  He said he was going to hang on behind me as long as he could.  There was pretty much no rain at this point, just a little here and there. It was feeling a bit warm though, hovering near 70 degrees with the humidity you get when it's drizzly.

The race started, and the usual Turkey Trot mayhem ensued, with people blocking me while others went around me, little kids going out way too fast.  After about a 1/4 mile the chaos settles down a little bit.  Crowd is still thick, but people are more or less running the pace they are going to run. Thomas is nowhere to be seen, I'm sure some pretty far ahead by now.  Finisher's mugs go to top 125 runners.  I scanned ahead as we went down the hill to see how long the line of runners was ahead of me - it was pretty far.  I was getting into a groove of passing people, my pace was holding in the 6:20's range and ended up being 6:28 for the first mile.  In years past, you really needed to be a good bit under 20 minutes to get a mug (also, it used to be only top 100 finishers).  This year I was reasonably hopefully that under 21:00 and I still had a chance.

Second mile was slower at 6:46.  Needed to hang on and stay sub 7:00.  The third mile has a hill, not too bad, but enough to slow me down a little.  Going up the hill I'm now in the 7:00's, but I pick some back up once the road flattens out and I can see the stadium not too far away.

I pick off a couple more people but it's not easy.  Each person I see might be number 125.

But, I make it to the finish chute and they are still making sure that we stay in line (a good sign!) and a guy is handing out finisher's cards.  I've made it again somehow.

Last year, Andy and I ran the 10K, so we were able to see Thomas finish.  I didn't see him finish but I was confident he had been done already for a little bit.  I first saw Spencer. He was walking around without a mug (worried for a second), but he had just forgotten to get the mug when he dropped off his finisher's card so he went back and got one.  I asked how Tom did, Spencer said "he crushed it!").  Finally found Tom, his time was 19:05.  

We stopped for cinnamon melts on the way back to drop him off at Jenny's house and also got a picture with Andy.

Things have changed a lot since last year but the run, getting the mugs, cinnamon melts and a picture were the good things that hadn't changed and I was thankful for all of it.

5.42 mi, 53:06, 9:48 avg

Ran with Joe and Jamie in the neighborhood.  Run was pretty good but I was really feeling yesterday's race (I was hoping that it had somehow magically cured my chronic dead legs - I have had such things happen in the past, but not this time, back to how they felt before the race).

Good run overall, and compared to many of the very short runs this one was a little longer.  The new (hopefully temporary) normal.

6.63, 1:03:49, 9:38 avg

Went to Starkey Park at 6:45 to meet Daisy who was starting there as well as Joe and Jamie who were running from Diane's house.  Nice cool morning, we ran out 3 miles and then turned back.  I forgot to restart my watch at some point so came up short on 6 miles (but I ran a little extra with Stella once I got home).

Chatted with Keith for a bit (rare week with Dixie sighting on Thursday at the Turkey Trot and then Keith on Saturday).

Push-ups: 59

3.3, 31:33, 9:33 avg

Solo out and back run from my house to just past the water fountain and then back.  Just a little run to keep me going, still trying to shake the tired legs.  Getting in some extra walking to make up for part of the low mileage.

Push-ups: 60

4.38 mi, 39:59, 9:07

Solo run in the neighborhood.  Still feeling with tired legs.  Tried to change things up a little bit but not sure if it helped right away.  Ran just two faster quarters, not really at 400m training pace (which might be about 5:40 pace for me), but did about 5k pace, to remind myself I could run faster and to try and wake up some muscles and things I wasn't using for easy runs.

7.13 mi, 1:04:39, 9:04

Since I was close to getting 100 miles for the month, I decided to break with my very low mileage days and run 7 miles despite tired legs.  One good thing I discovered was that the "tired legs" feeling does go away after about 4 miles, so maybe it's just really stiff and tight legs making them feel extra hard to move.

Ran from my house, out to the Y, taking the short route.  Stopped there for the water fountain and took a gel before turning back.  Ran into Jenny while running past the golf course on my way home.  Last mile was at 7:40 (much better than first mile which was at 11:25 pace).

I also tried my new SanDisk mp3 player with bluetooth which worked fine but has horrible sound quality (at least when listening over bluetooth).  I've got a cheaper one by AGPTEK with much better sound but it won't play AAC files when using bluetooth headhphones (AAC aka mp4 or m4a - I had to rename all the mp4 files to .m4a to get them to work on the SanDisk player).  I might have to keep a set of files converted from mp4 to mp3 so I can use the cheaper but better sounding player.

Finally, while leaving for work, backing out of my garage I felt a bump, like running over something.  So, I stopped, pulled back into the garage and opened my door to get out.  Next to my door, inside the garage was about a 4 foot long alligator. He/she just walked away.  Was not expecting an alligator in my garage.  Must have gotten lost while going from one pond to another.