Category — Prospect Park

Ah well, the unexpected has happened and it appears that I will be taking two days off from training this week. I hate when that happens, which is why I never plan for a day off or let myself slack very often. You never know when something beyond your control is going to come up and force you to miss a workout. When this happens, I begin to start feeling all out of shape. I need to keep up with a regular dose of exercise to feel normal.

My first day off was Monday. I had intended to spin on my trainer after I got home from work, but I was feeling a little lazy so I said that I’d do it after dinner. Well, that was the end of that. I sat on my couch after eating and promptly started to fall asleep. I just decided to screw the workout and went up to bed at 8pm. I guess I needed the sleep, because I slept through the night without any sleep aids until 7am the next morning. In fact, I wanted to sleep longer, work was my unfortunate reality.

Tuesday night though I got back into the swing of things. I had my regularly scheduled run with my friend Larry and we headed out to Prospect Park for a couple of loops (we ran 8.1 miles in 1:11:11). At first I was a little worried about doing this run. On Monday morning, my shin was hurting pretty badly and by Tuesday night it was only somewhat better. So far my method of ignoring the pain and hoping it will go away has been working, but if the pain starts to get any worse, I fear that I may have to revisit that strategy for dealing with the injury.

So anyway, it was with a bit of trepidation that I went out and hoped that the pain wouldn’t get any worse. I was feeling ok during the first few miles and I began to relax. The pain was there, but nothing too bad. At just before midway into the run, I remembered about a website on Chi Running that my Twitter friend Gracie told me about. It espouses the idea of running with a more forefoot stride. I changed myself to a forefoot stride a couple of years ago and that had been very successful until relatively recently. In fact it worked until I came back from an injury to my left hipflexor back in September of last year. Thinking about Chi Running, I realized for the first time that perhaps my stride had changed a bit since I came back from that injury. That could explain why my left shin has been such a problem lately. So I re-concentrated on landing forefoot, especially with my left foot and noticed an improvement in the way my left shin felt. It wasn’t much but it was progress.

I guess the real test came this morning when I first started to walk around. I was expecting the type of pain that I had on Monday morning, but it just wasn’t there. The shin was painful alright, but it felt different somehow. It was the type of pain I could definitely deal with, even if it is always present. I’ll just need to pay a little more attention to my stride, until really landing forefoot once again becomes natural.

So this leads me up to today (Wednesday), in which I need to take another day off from training. I have a school event to go to for one of my children that will take me into late this evening, so I have no chance of an evening workout. I suppose I could have made sure I got to bed real early last night, so I could have done a workout this morning, but I just didn’t feel like making myself go to sleep. In the past, I would take an Ambien to force myself to go to sleep, but that doesn’t really work for me anymore. My body has learned how to fight it off and stay awake right through it. So basically I am annoyed at myself right now for getting myself into a situation where I miss two workouts in a week.

Maybe that is a good thing though. Every time this happens to me, which isn’t too often, I get hard on myself and tell myself that it is time to focus and recommit. Every now and then I need to reset myself and get my act in gear. I have a big race coming up and I can’t be fooling around with it. What I put in today will show up tomorrow. It is all cumulative. If I don’t put it in now, I won’t have it to draw upon when I need it most.

I really couldn’t sleep Saturday night. I finally feel asleep around 12:30am after sucking on an Ambien, but I woke up again at around 3:30am. So I went downstairs and had a bowl of cereal and decided that I may as well go for a run. My moving around woke up my wife so I told her my plans of going outside for a run. She thought I was insane and didn’t want me to go outside for fear that something would happen to me. I told her to make me a better offer than a middle of the night run. She offered up our basement treadmill as a viable alternative; that was not the offer I was hoping to hear so my middle of the night outdoor run became even more appealing.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to run. I thought maybe I’d stick to the sidewalks so at least I could be seen from the streets. I ran down to Grand Army Plaza and stopped to take a photo and make an Utterz to memorialize this event. I decided from there to go into Prospect Park. I’ve never had trouble at this time of night and figured I’d be better able to see someone coming from afar. It would be more deserted, but I felt safer inside the park.

I think I enjoyed this run more than any other run so far this year. I love the feeling of being outdoors in the middle of a January winter’s night, with the wind howling, leaves rustling and strange sounds emanating from everywhere. I felt like I was walking on the moon. It doesn’t matter how slowly or fast I run when I achieve this sort of feeling. I just love being outside with the world seemingly all to myself. The only company I had for the hour and ten minutes I was outside were rustling leaves and a solitary rat.

Normally when I am outdoors at times like this, I have music pumping into my ears. Unfortunately, the battery on my Ipod Shuffle decided to die soon once I entered the park. I normally like to seal off my senses from as much of the environment as possible to complete that spaceman on the moon feeling, but with the battery dead, I entertained myself to the sounds of the world instead. It at times got a little creepy. I would suddenly hear something rustling right next to me and I would get a start that it was some nefarious person out to do me harm. You hear so many different sounds at night when the world is still; sounds that are masked during the day.

My running felt very sublime. I was tired, but awake, running, but moving slow and I felt completely at peace with the world. Doing this run on so little sleep was a big confidence booster that I will be able to make it through the night at the VT100. I think I could have run all night long, but I knew I needed to get back home and try to get some sleep before the day began. I wanted to be awake to watch the football games later on TV.

I settled on doing just 6 miles. I let my course through the park meander a bit and I exited at a place that I don’t normally exit and enter the park. Doing so was divine providence. I had a clear view down a long street with the most fantastic full moon I’ve ever seen in my life. The moon was at the extreme western edge of the horizon and the sun which was still well below the eastern horizon was shining on it with a brilliant orange glow. It was the biggest full moon disk I’ve ever seen and I stopped me in my tracks. I stood in the middle of the road and stared in awe at this fiery looking orb for about 10 minutes. I am lucky the police didn’t come by or I would have been carted off to Bellevue Hospital. I tried in vain to get a good picture of it with my camera phone, but the street lamps would sort have wash out the effect of the moon. I felt like going into my house and waking everyone up so they could see it – for some reason though I didn’t think my wife would be amenable to getting up for that considering our earlier conversation.

So after completely cooling off while staring at the moon, I finally went inside, grabbed a quick bite and then iced down my shins. My house was very cold and between cooling down and icing; I became completely chilled to the bone. Fortunately, my wife was nice and warm when I got into bed. Heh hee.

Once again I did the Two Bridges run. While last week I focused my run in pictures around the Brooklyn Bridge, today I decided to pay more attention to the Manhattan Bridge. First up, is a picture of me climbing the north side of the bridge. The picture can’t show it, but the Manhattan Bridge is pretty noisy. There are trains constantly crossing it and it can get really loud.

About a third of the way up the span, you get a great view of the Williamsburg Bridge. I’ll be running on that bridge soon enough as my runs get longer.

I continued off the Manhattan Bridge and was greeted with the delicious smells emanating out of all the kitchens preparing the days lunches and dinners. I was tempted to stop at this particular restaurant serving Peking Duck - Yummy!

I then ran down to the water and snapped this great shot of the Manhattan Bridge. I am very happy with how it came out on my camera phone.

After that it was back to Brooklyn by way of the first bridge to span the East River.

Where I finish my run in my usual stomping ground Prospect Park. I am pretty sure the Peking Ducks from my previous picture are related to the ducks you see here swimming on the lake.

I had a fantastic run today. I decided I was going to do the Two Bridges run, which meant I would run through downtown Brooklyn, over the Manhattan Bridge and then back into Brooklyn by way of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was a breezy and cool, but still well warmer than normal for a day in January. I started the run off with a run through Prospect Park to warm up. I was looking forward to getting out of the park though; since I am getting a little stir crazy being in there all the time.

Exiting the park through Grand Army Plaza, I made my way down Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge. The MB is a neglected jewel for running. Hardly anyone uses the pedestrian walkway. It a free and clear shot into Manhattan with spectacular views of the Brooklyn Bridge and downtown Manhattan. It is a smooth run, but can be a little noisy and the subway runs right along the side. Every time I run over the bridge I can’t help feeling as though something is missing from the skyline as I cross it. Maybe one day it will look right and whole again. The best part of running over the MB is the view it afford of the Brooklyn Bridge. You can see it from end to end and the boats passing underneath.

Once off the bridge it was a quick trip through the sights and smells of Chinatown. It is quite a contrast from the Brooklyn side of the bridge. I quickly ran through Chinatown and felt my stomach rumble as the smell of duck and port wafted out of the kitchens. I bee lined out of there and headed for the East River, down under the FDR drive. As you run along the water, you can see a small beach exposed just under the Brooklyn Bridge. I snapped another photo from here. I would have liked to have posted this one to utterz, but I was getting cold just standing around. Instead I got on the move again and headed back up to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Few people remember that the original walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge used to be broken up by staircases on each side. This was changed back when the bridge was renovated back in the 80’s. Now it is a very pleasant by crowded run over a wooden walkway. I took a photo of the suspension cables holding up the bridge. Please excuse my thumb in the bottom left of the picture. The BB, is actually a combination of Suspension and Cable Stay technologies. The combination makes for a beautiful spider web type effect. It is really a very beautiful piece of architecture.

Once off the bridge, I just made my same way back to Prospect Park to finish off the run. I was schedule for 12 miles, but decided to do a baker’s dozen. Thinking of a baker’s dozen got me in the mood for bagels, so I stopped and purchased one before I got home. I had it with a schmear of cream cheese and a couple of easy over eggs.

So here are the stats for today’s run: 13.1 miles in 1:58:56. Avg/Max HR: 149/159 Ascent 600 feet.

Well I ran longer than I should have this morning, especially considering I shouldn’t have run at all. This morning was a scheduled pool workout, but I woke up too late to get the swim in and make it to work on time. So I went out for what should have been a short run, but instead I went ahead and made it longer. Only 6.3 miles, but it turned what should have been a sub 30 minute workout into almost an hour. So now I am just as late to work as if I had gone to the pool. Maybe not that bad, but still I am pushing the line with how late I’m going in. What’s worse is I have a meeting I am going to be late for. Oh well. I was just enjoying my run too much to stop it short.

Unlike yesterday I was running pretty well today. I averaged about 9 minute miles pretty effortlessly. My HR is still a little high for a 9mm effort, but that will come down over the next couple of months. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on the fitness I lost over the late fall. The key is to just keep from getting too exuberant with my running to prevent potential injury. That is going to be hard to do though if I keep feeling the way I did during this morning’s run. It was one of those days where I get chills down my spine from feeling so good. Part of the good feelings was thinking about what I am going to be doing in July. In fact I am getting those chills now as I type this blog entry.

Running the VT100 is going to be something that is great. A real point in my life that I will remember. I think of myself now running alone in the middle of the night. Will I be delirious? Will I be happy? Will I be thinking about lying on the ground, rolling into a ball and dying? I have no idea and that is part of the excitement. I will be pushing my body to a point it’s never been to before. I’ll be exploring uncharted territory; reaching the unknown. I’ll be a modern day explorer searching my own soul for answers. I’ll measure myself as a man, see what sort of guts I have and run for 100 miles. Failure at this endeavor is not an option. Knowing that I am going to be doing this, well, it’s not a feeling I can easily describe.

I am going to make a concerted effort this year to fully document my training online. After all, it’s not every year where I will be training for a 100 mile race. I should pay respect to what I am going to do and document how I got there. Half if not most of the event is all of the training you do leading up to it. I’d only be telling half the story if all I wrote about was doing the event itself and not writing about what I did to allow me to accomplish my goal.

Sometimes I feel as though I am looking through a 50 year window. I am seeing things in the present, but somehow it feels like what I am witnessing occurred many years ago. It is kind of driving me insane. Of course, this most specifically happens while I am with my children. I will remember forever this past Friday when I stayed with my son on the ball field long after his team’s practice was over. We were practicing hitting and every time he would he the ball he would start running the bases. The look of pure joy as he rounding third and headed for home while I tried to chase him down with the ball was enough to make my heart melt. However, while watching him, it was as though this current event happened long ago. I am already longing for days that have not yet passed.

I passed a pleasant weekend. I played poker with some friend later on Friday evening (lost $40), but had to leave early so I could wake up to take my son to his baseball game Saturday morning. My son went 3 for 3 with 3 runs scored and made a play at the plate. He loves playing baseball and is certainly enjoying it infinitely better than I was at his age. After baseball and horsing around with my son and his friends we headed home for lunch. My wife and daughter were heading out for her soccer game when we arrived. I wanted to get to her game, but I couldn’t get my son back out the door since he wanted to hang around and rest for a while. I was sorry to miss her game and I vow to myself not to miss her next one. I was able to get in a good 25 mile bike ride in the late afternoon, when my mother came over and took the kids out to a movie. It was my best ride in months.

Sunday morning I took my kids out on their bikes while I ran a lap of Prospect Park. While circumnavigating the park, I ran into my coach who happened to do a duathlon that was held in it earlier that morning. We chatted for a few minutes and I let him know I am contemplating the Greenbelt 50k on May 12. He told me as long as I keep jumping into ultramarathons I will be just fine for Lake Placid. I just need to get in the pool a little more. We then finished up our lap of the park and soon headed back out to it to play baseball with my friend as his kids. I felt a little bad for my daughter who didn’t really seem to want to play baseball, but fortunately our practice didn’t last too long.

After leaving the park all of us headed out to Coney Island. We went to the beach and played in the surf for about an hour. Their clothes, hair and bodies were full of sand and saltwater by the time we left. Fortunately they were mostly dry by the time we got back to the boardwalk and I was able to easily brush the sand off of them. We then headed to the Wonder Wheel for a ride in the swinging cars. This was their first time in it and they had a thrilling good time. I then dumped a ton of money in the arcade where they played Skeeball and other games that award you tickets, which could be traded in for an assortment of crappy prizes.

After the arcade the boys at some pizza and I promised my daughter I would take her to Nathan’s for a hot dog. Before we went to Nathan’s though we went to the Coney Island Freak Show. The show can best be described as a collection of circus side shows reminiscent of years past. It was hokey and amusing at the same time. They had a contorting girl, Geek the Freak, a man who at the glass of a light bulb and a fire throwing. The show went on for a long time and was filled with pitches for donations to see additional exhibits.

The show went on much longer than expected, so we had to leave a little early in order to get to my mother-in-law’s house for dinner. We didn’t have time to get to Nathan’s for my daughter’s hot dog which deeply upset her since everyone else had gotten something they wanted to eat while at Coney Island. So after dinner I agreed to take her back to Coney Island so she could get her hotdog. She ate it during the car ride home and the look of happiness on her face was worth the side trip.

I almost decided to sleep in for this race since it was a bit chilly outside and I wasn’t in the mood to wait around in the cold for the race to start. To top it off, I discovered that I had 3 flats over my two sets of wheels. I had put on my Zipps the night before and inflated them after they have been sitting since September ’06. When I went to my bike in the morning I discovered both of them had lost all of their air pressure. I can’t imagine why this was so as they seemed fine when I took them off all those months ago. My third flat was on my regular set of training wheels, so I had to spend a few minutes that morning, getting my hands dirty to fix at least one flat.

I met up with a bunch of other members of the Asphalt Green Triathlon Club. Since this was a club points race, I felt obligated to wear my AGTC tri clothes. No worries to Hammer Nutrition though, as before and after the race, I had on my Hammer gear. It was nice to be part of a team for a change.

My lack of serious training as of late showed up in the race. I felt like I was running through molasses. The last time I did this race, I was second in my age group. This time the best I could muster was 7th. It is what it was though and I guess I should just be happy to have been able to put in a hard effort. Overall place I was 33rd out of 111.

After lounging around the house for a while, I decided to head to the YMCA for a swim. I felt pretty good and wound up going 2000 yards when all I planned for was 1500. I could have gone longer, but I wanted to leave the pool wanting more. Hopefully this will give me inspiration to get back in the water soon. I do have Alcatraz coming up.

When I got off the subway when returning from the pool, I decided to stop into the local grocery to buy a lottery ticket. A woman was standing outside of it asking for money. She didn’t seem to be in particular need and I didn’t like the way she asked for it. Anyway, I entered the store to cash a winning lottery ticket and buy another for that nights drawing. As I turned to leave the store, this woman who only moments ago was on the sidewalk begging for money was right next to me purchasing her own lottery ticket. I couldn’t help but ask her if that was why she was asking for money. She replied “That’s right, there is no crime in that”. I could have thought of a million different replies to her, but I just kept going instead. Who knows, maybe one day she will become a millionaire from someone else’s money.

I guess the workouts from Saturday, took their toll on me. I went out for a 5 to 6 mile run this morning and completely lost all energy by the time I reached 2.5 miles. I stuck with it thought and managed to get in 5 miles without stopping, although it was a struggle. The fact that I had trouble with these 5 miles is concerning me a bit as this coming weekend I am signed up to do the Kurt Steiner 50K. At least this ultra will be over a short 2.2 mile loop so I can always easily bail out. I am counting on my friend Larry to get me through it. This 50K will also serve as my one and only long training run before the Boston Marathon. I’ll just have to see how it goes.

I am off to San Diego with my family. I am heading there for a business trip and I decided that San Diego is too nice of a place to go without them. I was supposed to leave on Friday, by the Noreaster that stopped by cancelled all of the flights out of JFK airport. I’ll only get to spend 1 day with them and the rest of the time, I’ll be at a conference and the wife and kids will be off to Sea World and the Zoo. I’ll at least get to go with them to the tide pools and beach tomorrow (Sunday). Maybe I’ll even get a swim in at La Jolla Cove.

The storm did have a bit of a silver lining. My real estate class ended this week and the final exam for it was on Friday. Since I was no longer flying out, I was able to take the exam on the original time scheduled, instead of having to sweat it that day after I come back from San Diego. The test was quick and easy and I was home before 7pm. This gave me just enough time to take my kids to Prospect Park to do some nighttime sledding. We were the only ones out and we had fun going down the unmarked fresh snow. I also managed to get in a quick swim and run earlier in the day.

Today I extended my workout streak to 16 days. I did an easy 4 miler on my treadmill, in between packing for the trip. Yeah, I should have packed yesterday, but since my flight was cancelled I spent the time studying. So today was just a quick 4 miles and then it was off to one of my most dreaded tasks – packing for a trip. I hate it. I always worry about forgetting or not packing something I may want. It’s enough that it almost makes me not want to go anywhere.

I still haven’t done a long run in quite some time. To make up for this and to get ready for the Boston Marathon, I signed up to the Kurt Steiner 50K. I figure I will get all of my long runs in at one shot. Kind of like cramming for an exam. I am doing the race with Larry, so I really have no worries about finishing it. I know he will help me pace properly to insure success. Also, when I return from San Diego, I have the CityTri Spring Duathlon in Prospect Park. Just a short little race to get some of the cobwebs out of my body.

That’s all for now. The airplane is getting ready to land.

So I’ve got a new thing going for my training routine. Whenever my workout calls for a bike ride, I setup my computer right next to my bicycle so I can play online poker at www.fulltiltpoker.com while I ride. It is really working out for me. I’ve been able to achieve a higher heart rate while doing this than while ever watching a movie on TV. I guess the excitement of it is a constant thing unlike a movie which inevitably has slow and dull moments. I am not playing for real money, so no worries about me becoming a degenerate gambler. Playing for points is satisfying enough; but damn is it addictive. So now I am fueling two additions at the same time – training and gambling. Maybe I could somehow work sex into this equation and really reach nirvana.

Yesterday I blew off my 3 mile active recovery run and instead substitute about 90 minutes of ice skating with my kids at night. It was my son’s first grade school outing, so I took him and my daughter to the rink and skated amongst a bunch of 6 years old. It was a lot of fun. The night was cold and crisp with a light breeze. The air was sparkling clear and the lights in Prospect Park were twinkling beautifully. It was very heart warming to see a bunch of little kids all skating, sliding and falling with a rosy glow on their cheeks. My kids had a great time and didn’t want to leave the ice. My son is really starting to get the hang of ice skating and was off on his own for almost all of the night. Moments like last night serve as a reminder of how lucky I am.

I was running with Larry in Prospect Park this past Wednesday and I got to talking with him about how much better it is to train in the city rather than in the suburbs. Here we were running around a perfectly paved road free of traffic under the cover of darkness. Those in the country don’t have that sort of luxury. We both agreed it is far more dangerous to be running on country roads with their blind turns than to be in a city park at night with plenty of other like minded people.

Well my confidence in that belief was somewhat shaken last night. I was running on my own down by the skating rink (sometimes known as the low rent section of the park) when several young punks started to approach me from an angle. As soon as I saw them I knew I was in for a bit of trouble. The leader of them came directly across the road, up from behind me and then paced me on my left hand side. He asked me for money, to which I replied excuse me (I was listening to my mp3 player). He asked me again and I told him I didn’t have any. He then replied “What if I hit you”. I could hear his friend laughing and running up to my right had side while this was happening.

I was glancing over my shoulder to see where his friend was (he was just about on top of me), when the leader called out to him “Yo Chill”. I am not sure what happened to make them suddenly stop and I just kept on running. Perhaps he didn’t like the look on my face or the fact that my demeanor didn’t change at all. I don’t think I changed my pace a bit during the entire time, but I was ready to start to make a break for it. I just wasn’t sure if I could outrun them. Fortunately I didn’t have to find out. Possibly they were just kids looking to horse around, but you wonder what type of parents bring up kids who think scaring people is a good time.

Besides thinking about how I was going to get out of the situation, I kept thinking about how my kids were waiting for me at home and how it would really be sub-optimal to get hurt while out for a run. What scared me even more was my daughter was a fraction of a second away from coming with me this evening and I had no idea how I would have handled the situation had she been with me.

I am really pissed off over this. Running is one of the ways I can relieve my stress and I enjoy my time being out in the park where I can let my thoughts and worries disappear. To have that solitude disturbed by several assholes is extremely disturbing. I am now worried about taking my kids out with me at night and resent having that pleasure taken away from me.

After the incident had passed, it took a while for me to pass anyone else in the park. I finally saw a single woman walking towards me into the direction of the incident. I stopped and warned her along with another male runner who happened to come up on me. Finally a Parks Department vehicle came up from behind me and I flagged it down. The people I warned must have already told the officers, because they already knew about the hooligans and were heading towards the area. At that point the alert was sent out and I saw several police vehicle enter the park.
This was not the way to end my week. Or perhaps it was a fitting ending to a crappy week. It seemed as though everything that could go wrong at work did. It was a stressful week and a stressful way to end it. At least in the end I had a good run and my legs felt great. I have a 3-day weekend now, thanks to MLK, so hopefully it will be restful and peaceful.