Exercise Goals for 2008

EhBeth--

A Room of One's Own is always valuable.

24 miles this week including a why-didn't-I-ever-notice-this-was-all-uphill-before?-run which left my knees a little warm for the next two days. They are fine today. No complaints. 410.9 for the year

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I am not going to say 'No" to the home exercise space, but I will say that I have known many more people who were successful at exercising because they went to a people-filled space (gym, park, boardwalk) rather than those who bought a "Total Gym" only to find it covered six months later with dust or used as a clothesrack.

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The Hope and Possibility Five Mile Race is tomorrow morning. LINK It is such a honor to be in this race. If I ever have a moment where I am feeling sorry for myself I remember this race. You get to run with hundreds of people who are disabled in some way, but who are out there making it around the loop. Some with one leg or no legs, stroke patients, paralysed and on crutchs, injured backs, missing feet, the blind..... and you say "What!?" Joe?" Joe's got a warm knee."..

".OOOOh my, Joe, shut up and run."

The other cool thing is that the last mile .....


Joe(is all downhill.)Nation

410.9?
Sounds like the Nation Express is picking up steam.

I had a great jog this morning. It was a lazy, loping thing past Spot Pond,
the Stone Zoo, down to the boathouse and back. Sunny day, chasing the
clouds away. No hills to speak of, no intervals, no tempo.

Then I went home, rousted Clive and we went to the gym. Clive is nursing
a cold (it sounds like there's a seal in the bedroom), so that workout was
pretty mellow too.

Next week I'm gonna get serious.

Yesterday I laid waste to the Tree of Heaven weeds that were threatening to take over the back yard. Today I am paying for it with less than optimal feelings (ain't that PC?) in my hamstrings, back and right bicep. I lifted anyway, even though it's an abs/glutes day.

Advil is my friend.

Five Mile Hope and Possibility Race. New York




I am all over the place with my thoughts this morning.
I came in ninth out the of the twenty-seven 60-64 year old men in this race. I've never been in the top ten before.

Didn't make a new PM but don't mind. It's not that important somehow.

This customer I know from the store, Jim, was in the race without his fancy electric wheelchair. He has MS. He has to use immense amounts of energy to control his one good hand. He was halfway up the middle of Cat Hill about a mile and a quarter into the race when I saw him. Jim pushs his regular wheelchair with his one good foot, backwards.

Nope.


Joe(It's not that important.)Nation

Hey, congrats on the top 10 though, context and all...


Ran today. Trackmom finally joined us again -- I'd hoped that maybe we closed the gap with her a bit but she was busy last week because she was helping disabled kids (a theme) learn how to ride bikes. So she spent the whole week running! She's even faster than she was last time we saw her. She seems to have passed some sort of threshold and is doing great. Newbie and I are trucking along -- good (newbie's improved a lot) but Trackmom seems to have ascended to a different league -- hopefully we can join her soon. (She seems game enough, meanwhile.)

We tried changing up the workout today -- it was definitely more of a challenge. My idea was to shift the balance from walking to running by cutting the walking distance and adding running laps. When we started I needed a lot of time to recover from a lap -- my heart rate would be up for almost the whole walking lap. Now I recover within 100 yards or so, and heartrate is back to normal within 200 yards or so. So now we're running a lap, walking 200 yards (or HALF a lap), then running again. Today we ran five laps and walked 200 yards 6 times; next we'll run six laps. So that'd be a mile and a half of running as opposed to one mile.

Still nice to have some recovery because we do run pretty fast (relatively speaking anyway). I think I might try to go out by myself for slower, continuous running.

Week 25
20.2 miles

Scheduled cumulative mileage: 500
Actual cumulative mileage: 520.3

[Looking nothing at all like a marine in Quantico VA)

I'm paying a lot more attention to warming up these days.

Either I do a series of squats, bends and twists or I begin my run at a
very slow pace. Even slower than my regular pace. Which is slow. If I
pay attention, I can tell from my breathing and the fluidity of my motions
when I am warmed up and ready to go at my regular pace.

At the gym, I either make the same motions as I would make in the
upcoming exercise, but without weights, or I do a set with a minimum
load.

It keeps me from hurting myself and helps the exercise itself to flow
more smoothly.

Sounds good. I should be more careful about that. I know what you mean about being able to tell when you're warmed up.


Hot humid day today and man it was brutal. The first couple of laps I'd caught my breath/ was back to normal by the time we started again (after walking 200 yards, or half a lap), but the last three laps were ROUGH -- I wasn't fully recovered before we took off again.

Plus I had to pee! That was very distracting, and there were no open bathrooms. I knew it was hot and humid outside and so I drank a lot before I left... NOT doing that again..!

Anyway, it wasn't pretty, but I managed it. And I think it's good that we're upping the ante rather than coasting.

We had a hazy-hot-humid one yesterday. Ugh. I hate it when you take a
shower, dry yourself off, and then continue to sweat.

Ran down the river this morning, beautiful day despite the haze. Did 11.1, a nice evenly balanced number and then trotted over to the Boat Pond, but there were no boats, just ducks.

Ran another 1.0 uphill to the subway and I have my 100 mile month for June.

Joe(and still a few days to go)Nation

11.1 miles. And so casual about it to.

I'm really not there yet.


We ran today. Neither Trackmom or Newbie could make it before 11 AM, so that's when we ran -- already horribly hot and humid. We were all so whupped last time that we took it easy a bit -- took more time between laps for some of them. It was fine, challenging but fine.

I have the advantage of the long linear route rather than a loop. It starts off downhill about a half a mile then into and around the north end of Ft. Tryon Park, that gets me to the River Path which I take due South for as long as I want.

This is the view of the path from the George Washington Bridge. You run right on the river for most of the way except for some jogs around 125th Street and near 82nd Street.






The whole distance to Battery Park on the South End of Manhattan would be about fifteen miles or so, but I usually cut off at the 79th Street Boat Basin and head over to Central Park, pry my way through the tourists at Strawberry Fields and then trot down to the 59th Street A Subway Station.

I take the train back home.

I can turn around at any point and loop back but I prefer to go from point A to point B rather than from A to A.

Joe(just me I guess)Nation

We are halfway through 2008!

Week 26

20.9 miles

Scheduled cumulative mileage: 520
Actual cumulative mileage: 541.2

[Virtually jogging through the Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania area of Virginia]

Nice going, guys!


We ran yesterday -- newbie's back is bothering her (the word "throbbing" was used) so it was just me and Trackmom. We burned rubber (the track is made out of some sort of shredded/recycled tires) for the first three laps. She is FAST these days, and I managed to keep up with her, barely. Then I pleaded for mercy, and we did another two laps at a slower pace. (She's definitely the fittest of the three of us but she's also the tallest -- very long legs and a very long stride, which gets her further faster. Newbie and I are about the same height/ same stride.)

I definitely want to do more long steady slow stuff, am trying to figure out how to best do that.

The three of us (me Trackmom newbie) also did some walking together on Saturday, which was fun. Less impact, but did feel like we got a bit of a workout. (We'd planned on running that day but the track was overtaken by hordes of young men with soccer balls.)

Halfway through the year, 10,210 minutes of cardio done. Plus, uh, might add some tonight.

For any other New Yorkers or for any runners coming to the city soon:

INTERACTIVE MAP OF CENTRAL PARK

I run on the roadway rather than on the bridal path which is 1) full of ruts and 2) pitch dark when I am usually there. I am really curious about some of the optional paths over on the East side which, despite a lot of shortcutting, I haven't yet discovered. Going to do them in the daylight though. I took a couple of dashs across the Ramble in the pitchy dawn darkness and about had a heart attack every time I stepped on a stick.

Joe(WhoDere!!!??)Nation

Finally timed ourselves!

I've been very curious about pace.

Strangely, our "slow" lap wasn't actually much slower than our "fast" lap -- dunno what's up with that.

But looks like we're going between 6.5 and 7 MPH.

When I used to run on the treadmill regularly, 5 was easy, 5.5 was getting there, 6 was a challenge, and 6.5 was the highest I could sustain for a while.

(Five running laps, six walking laps today.)

I think you are ready for a four or five mile weekend race with the local running club. (I'm assuming your laps are quarter miles.) Find a local Saturday morning Run to (Save the Fill in the Blanks). Pay your entry fee, get your free t-shirt and then run with the crowds.

Joe(you can do it.)Nation

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

(My laps are quarter miles, yes.)

We're planning on doing a 5K in October (this li'l running club). I want to get more sustained, slow stuff in before I try for a race...