The Aftermath

I woke up this morning and wished that I could somehow trade in both my legs from the knees down. I am glad that I had today off from school as handling the steps at my various subway stops would have been excruciatingly painful. Before 8 a.m., I had already taken two ice baths.

So I did what any normal person would do to alleviate my discomfort.... Bikram Yoga. Yes, I know I have preached the benefits of Bikram Yoga on this site several times in the past, but none compare to what I feel about it after today's class. That wish I had about trading in my legs basically came true after I left class. The pain was reduced from about a 7 (out of 10) to a 3. Everything feels better and stronger. One posture in particular I think helped a lot, the Padangustasana, aka the Toe Stand. The beneifits of this posture are:
Creates balance and focus in body and mind
Strengthens stomach muscles
Strengthens joints (hips, knees, ankles and toes)
Helps relieve arthritis in all leg joints including hips
It looks like this - (note: I don't quite look like that in my attempts).

Now the pose I really needed today is the Dandayamana Dhanurasana aka Standing Bow Pulling Pose, as one of the benefits of this pose is the reduction of abdominal fat. After a week of tapering, only running one time for 4 miles, and also carb loading, I feel like I balooned, and the scale confirmed it as I put on 4 pounds. Having seen a recent pic of a friend, I'm thinking he needs this pose as well.

Is Mother Nature A Runner????

My day began at 3 a.m. as I woke up with a bunch of nervous energy in anticipation of my first half-marathon. We were picking up Bonnie, Tom and Vince (who never made it for the ride) at 5:30 at Forest Park and the whole drive over there it was raining hard and lightning as well. The storm continued for the entire drive into Manhattan and started letting up a little as soon as we got out of the car, but it was still raining somewhat. About 6:30, as we were loading into our corrals, the rain stopped and it stayed completely dry for the entire run as well as the post race festivities. On the way home (thanks for the ride Alex), the downpour resumed and even hailed for a little while, fortunately we were inside a pizza parlor for the hailstorm.

Anyway, as for the race itself.... My goal was to finish in under 2 hours, but in the back of my head I was holding out hope for 1:50:00. Well, my net time was a 1:57:03, and I am very pleased with this result for my first long race (my previous longest race was a 10k). Some stats - I finished 3765th overall out of 10506 finishers. In my gender and age group (the oh so tough M30-39), I placed 1058 out of 2071. Again, overall I am very pleased (as below pic shows), but now I have some new goals to train for.

I am tired.....more to come tomorrow........

These Shoes Are Made For Running....

With 2 Half Marathons and 1 Marathon coming up in the next 3 months, not to mention all the training miles, I think it is time to pick up another pair of running shoes. As Alex has been raving to me about his new New Balance shoes, I decided to take a trip to my local running store and try on a few pair. The one that I found most comfortable overall and most appealing to me in the style department were the New Balance 1011 in a size 9. http://www.newbalance.com/running/footwear/MR1011/

First of all, as I often struggle with lacing (too tight? too loose? I don't know) and have tried the bungee laces to no avail, I found the lacing/webbing system to be very comfortable and supportive at the same time. The weight of the shoes is a little heavier than I am used to but I did not find that to be a problem at all. Also, for a very stabile shoe, the forefoot has nice flexibility which offers a smooth transition to the toe-off phase.

!@#$%^&*()_+!@#$%^&*()_+

The title of this post is all characters to censor what I really feel right now. I am just going to ask one question and then drop the subject as it angers me too much. After 8 strong innings, in which your starting pitcher, the one you paid 137 million dollars for, has only thrown 105 pitches and your closer is not available, why why why do you remove him from the game to bring in Duaner Sanchez, who has no experience closing a game with a lead in a big situation????? I don't know which one of these two is the bigger goat from last night.

Anyway, I apologize for the absence of recent posts, but there were two contributing factors. One, laziness. I guess I felt that since I have been tapering before the NYC Half Marathon this Sunday, I was supposed to taper my blog posting. Makes sense, right? The other factor is that when I did get ready to post 2 nights ago, my blog was temporarily removed for some spam check thing. Don't ask.

Have been doing the Bikram Yoga regularly since last Friday. Haven't ran since then, but I think I'll be just fine as the Yoga is more than just stretching. I am getting a cardio workout, I'm losing a little weight, my injuries are healing, etc.... I highly recommend Bikram Yoga for anyone who runs. As a matter of fact, one of the instructors, Anne, is a runner and she was telling me she hardly trains anymore, just does the yoga regularly, and she always gets some hardware in her age group when she races. If you live in the Queens/Nassau area, I have been going to Bikram Yoga of Rockville Centre. It is a great studio and they are opening one soon in Rego Park. Here is the website.....
http://www.bikramyogarvc.com/

Hot Hot Hot

To avoid the heat, I went out for my long run this morning at 5:45. Guess what.....it was still pretty damn hot. I was pleased with my performance as I did 11 Miles in 1:38:15, a 8:56 pace. This was my last hard run before the NYC Half marathon next week on 7/27. I will cross train, go to Bikram Yoga, and do a few short easy runs over the next 8 days.



I came home from the run and showered, ate, and relaxed for a short while before heading out to my first Bikram Yoga class. For those unfamiliar with Bikram Yoga...
Bikram Yoga's twenty-six posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to one hundred percent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to healthy working order, just as Nature intended. Proper weight, muscle tone, vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being will automatically follow.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the room is set to a little over 100 degrees. The heat definitely does help one get deeper into the poses. I was able to do things like....




I am looking forward to the benefits that regular practice of Bikram Yoga will have on my running, as well as my overall health and well being.

Well, it's off to dinner and the Billy Joel concert. Depending on the guest stars tonight, I may lose the friendship of my training partner.....Oh hell, I can replace Alex....Paul McCartney with Billy Joel is a once in a lifetime experience.

These are a few of my favorite things.....

I love that in Yankee Stadium there are 7 Boston Red Sox playing on the All Star team. And since it is a home game for the American League, those 7 players will be using the Yankee locker room. The cherry on top would be if a Red Sox player wins the All Star MVP award, just as a Red Sox prospect won the All Star Futures Game MVP on Sunday.

Took yesterday off from running and it was a much needed day of rest. Schedule today called for 5 miles total of interval work , so I went over to the local track and warmed up a mile at a 9:00 minute pace, then ran a mile at 7:30, 1/2 mile at 8:30, 1 mile @ 7:30, finishing with 1 1/2 @ 8:15.

What a day....

Let me begin by apologizing to all my loyal readers (all one of you) for not posting anything in the past few days. I was dealing with some family issues, but fortunately everything is fine now.

A couple weeks ago I realized that my longest race to date has been a 5 mile and with the half-marathon coming up I wanted to get some experience with something a little longer, so I had signed up for today's NYRR Park to Park 10k. Alex joined me for the race as we had a full day planned, and as it was his turn to beat me, I had to pretend to have a hurt knee and ankle so that I could hold back and let him cross the finish line before me. Okay, seriously, I did not let him win, he ran a better race than me today, and yet I am very happy with me performance and optimistic going into the half in two weeks.

We left central park immediately following the race, despite Alex pestering like a child to stay for the swim in Lasker pool, and headed back to Rockaway to clean up, change, pick up two other people, and head to Yankee Stadium for the All Stars Futures Game and Celebrity Softball Game. Our seats were amazing and we got some excellent pictures to show our view.

The only negative to the day was that I think I jinxed my beloved NY Mets by suggesting we go to the Met game after leaving the first two games so that we can see them move into first place. At the time, Philadelphia was losing to Arizona 2-1 in the 7th inning and had Arizona held on and the Mets won, they would be in first going into the break. Next thing we knew, Philly won the game 6-3 and now the best the Mets can do is remain a half game out, which from the looks of the first three innings, is looking very good. Oops , I hope I didn't jinx this game too.

What's the point?

What is the point of ordering Sushi for dinner if you are going to follow it up with dome rich heavy chocolatey dessert? That ranks up there with the Big Mac with Diet Coke.

The schedule had me down for a 5 mile easy run at a 9:30 pace. To begin with, it was very difficult to do that pace. I can only restrain myself so much. I ended up doing 6.2 miles (the extra was for that dessert) at a 9:02 pace. Tomorrow is a long run (10 miles) followed by a day off before the 10k race on Sunday.

Meanwhile, how about the NY Metropolitans?

Sand gets in your eyes....

I sit here writing this having just returned from a nice 5 mile tempo run on the boardwalk. The scenery was fantastic, both of the beach and of the bikini clad beauties gracing the beach with their presence.

Overall, I love my Garmin Forerunner 305, but I must question the accuracy of the HR monitor. On the run, my average HR was 175bpm, which would be 95% of my max HR of 183. Now I know that the old formula of 220-age is not 100% accurate, but even if it off by a few bpms, that would still mean I was running at over 90% of my max HR for most of the run. Now considering that I have done a 5 mile race at a significantly faster pace than I just trained at, I highly doubt that I was in such a high HR zone. Maybe it pays to go see a sports doc and have my max HR and VO2 max tested.

Overall, It was a good day.

Didn't do much with my Sunday. Started off the day with a 3 mile run followed by a 2 mile walk. Then a family friend brought over their 11 month old granddaughter. I took her grocery shopping with me and it is true.....what a chic magnet. I think I'll borrow her and go out to Whole Foods in Manhasset.

Today starts my 14 week marathon training program and looking at the schedule I was pleased to see that today is a rest day. Lucky me.

My First Posting

Wow, my first Blog. It's about time I've moved into this century. Well, I said I was creating this blog to chronicle my journey to the Hartford Marathon, which will be my first, on 10/11/08, so I'll begin with a summary of my recent runs. As I just started running again on Wednesday after a week layoff from my deviated septum surgery (highly recommended if anyone has that condition), I ran 7 miles on Wednesday, 4 Miles on Friday, 4 Miles on Saturday, and 3 Miles this morning. Tomorrow is an off day and then I officially begin my 14 week training program. I chose to run by myself this morning in Rockaway since Alex (http://roadtonewyork.blogspot.com/) emailed me at 3 a.m. that he would not be running with the club (http://www.forestparkrunners.org/) today and John is away. Rockaway Beach is such a nice scenic place to go for a run and I am very fortunate to live there, however this morning I decided to run the streets through the neighborhood instead of the boardwalk.