200 Days to ING Marathon- Will Joe be ready?

Three hours is a lot of time on a treadmill. They should invent one that has potholes, sewer covers, bits of trash and sticks and crushed water bottles.
Oh, and it is always changing elevations from steep to steeper.

~~~~~~~`
This is why my average time was so slow last night.
The Park was magical.

This guy was so much fun to watch I forgot to stop my watch.
And the sunset light would have had Vermeer dragging his paintbox to the edge of the Lake.


I digress.
I did get my four miles in, ran for four different charities on CharityMiles.org.
Going to do four or five more tonight.
If I do one mile for ten different charities, I get a tee-shirt. Isn't that what this is all about ?? getting tee-shirts.

Here's the Morning Light from what'shisname:


Joe(If you don't stop, you don't have to start over)Nation

So, last night it was drizzling rain when I left work in Queens. I decided to go home instead of running four miles in Central Park. Maybe it wouldn't be raining by the time I got home though I don't mind running in the rain. Besides......(TMI information ALERT) I felt like I needed to use the bathroom.
Not that I mind finding a facility in the Park, I know where all of them are. Given the right um, motivation, I could probably tell you, from any point in the Park, how far in actual distance/tenths of miles a particular restroom is.
And their condition:
The ones at the old Tavern on the Green site, wonderful.
The ones by the tennis courts? You could let your baby-child play on the floor.
The ones by the Belvedere Theatre any time after 10AM, toxic waste site.

I took the train(s) home. I had been wrong on both counts; I didn't have to 'go' and it was still raining, but just a drizzle. Not even enough to wet my glasses.
So, I set up the Podrunner music, I set up the CharityMiles (Nature Conservancy, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Global Fund~~one mile each) started my watch and headed off. I just trotted, down the hill on Bennett through the bottom of Ft. Tryon Park, noting that I was at the top of the hill before I noticed I was on a hill, across Riverside and down Payson to Dykeman then West to the Hudson River. Raining, raining, raining.....but that wasn't stopping the crowd at the new place on the river~ The Marina~ they were doing valet parking and business, it seemed to me, was good.
I ran out to the end of Manhattan. There's a tree encircled by the path there. There was a couple fishing, they had tackle boxes, four rods and, I haven't a clue why, a radial tire standing up next to where they were sitting. It's .75 of mile from the Marina to this spot.
Did they take the wheel off the car and roll it all the way over here so that no one could steal their car?
Did they just spot it floating in the river?
Will a radial tire float if it's mounted to the rim?
~~These are the types of question which become distractions which is why I was running so slow.
Right.
I headed back South, up the steps to the River Trail and on towards the George Washington Bridge. Suddenly I realized it wasn't raining anymore and over to the West, the sky began to brighten. Just short of four miles, the sunset burst through and gave the world this:


This is why I don't mind running in the rain.

Joe(going for 100 miles this month)Nation

92 day + 4 hours.....

Today is set for a couple of loops of the Park....beautiful day.... on my way.

Joe(13 miles is the mark to make)Nation

Done. 13.1----very slow, just how I wanted.

Joe(That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)Nation

brutal temp|humidity combo this morning.
i don't dare jog when it's like this...

Same here. Joe is a fool to not just turn on the TV and watch the Olympians run for him.

I'm working up the courage to go outside for a walk. They say tomorrow will be cooler - only 95 F with the humidity. <scowls>

I started at 59th Street at 7AM. There were two five-mile races going on in the Park, both starting at the 103rd crossover, one start at eight, one at nine AM.

I ran North, passed the Start, to the top of the Park and then trotted along the race course until the male racers caught up to me.
The leaders were flowing past me at their six minute or better pace (Ten to Eleven Mile per hour)
I was running at a six mile per hour pace.
On my right was a horse carriage loaded with tourists....
I turned to them as the racers zoomed on:
"These are my pacers." I yelled.
They laughed.
That boosted me.
I trotted around the bottom of the Park (6.1) and then did the crossover at 72nd (8.6) and headed North, up over the hills again, (9.1)decided to cut through the 103rd crossover to see the Women's Start(10.3), but I had missed it.
I ran South for the last three miles back to 59th Street again
AND then had to trot about .3 of mile to really get the full 13.1 miles.
Was it hot?
Yes.
Did you eat any gels to power you along?
Three. AND about a half a gallon of water from various water fountains and race water stops.
Was it hard.
yes.
Anything else you'd like us to know?
I was six pounds lighter after I got home.

Joe(I feel great)Nation

So, one of my tweets got favorited (sic) AND I should go to see what else CharityMiles is favoriting (sic).

I sometimes favor my right knee and "The Big Bang Theory" is my favorite show at present. I know at some point I will pick another favorite, three years ago I loved "Two and a Half Men", but when that time comes I don't think I will describe myself as favoriting a new show.

Then again, I am a think-young, be hip, kind of dude, right? Except all three of those descriptions make me sound like something out of the sixties, which I am.


~~
Those 5.125 miles were done this morning in the Park starting the Gate at 59th Street and Central Park South. I like to run through that gate as much I can because it appears in the Marathon at just about exactly 26 miles, that means only .2 miles to go~~~almost all of it uphill~~~surrounded huge crowd noise, even when sloggers like me are making their way along.

When I get there I really know I am going to finish and a great feeling rushes through me,,,,,I get that same feeling <slightly reduced> every time I pass through this gate.


This gate has a name, all of the gates in all of our lives have names.

Joe(some you never forget, some you never knew)Nation

The miles, I have to say, are adding up.....I just don't have a total for you.
I did 6.3 in the park this morning, four something yesterday and five the day before that.
Running in the mornings is easier, but has the usual problems of what to do with the soaking wet clothes when you get to work. (I longer have a gym.)

Going to have to shed some more of these pounds (195.30 this AM~ that down 7+) in order to be able to build more speed in September.
~~
Factoid:
I ran out the gate at 103rd Street last night and ran into (not literally) about fifty members of the New York Flyers Running Club. Almost all of them were women between the ages of 25 and 30 training for the marathon.
If I was a guy between those two ages, I would try to find myself amongst them more often.
~~
Thomas may disagree with me, but I still think it's a lot easier to run Central Park's Big Loop counterclockwise. Except for Great Hill, the uphills are shorter and the downhills are longer than running clockwise, hence you have to put out more energy for a longer period of time in order to cover the same (6.3) distance. (Which is also why I suspect so many runners run that route counterclockwise....~~wimps).....

Joe(um...I think it's only 88 days now, I am not paying attention)Nation
~~

86 days, 27 minutes
I think that's wrong. That would mean I wouldn't get started until 11AM. Maybe the countdowner thingie is figuring in Daylight Saving time or something.
Headed up to Connecticut to do some hills up there and go to a wedding and dogsit a puppy and BBQ some stuff on a grill, meet some old friends and then do more hills.

I'm down to 195.00. Still fifteen more porko-lardo than I want to be.

Why does that sound like a Mexican seaside spa.... .
Puerco Loraedo ?

~~ Here's a tip for all you beginning runners who use clip-on sunglasses. If you clip the clipon sunglasses to your hat, try to remember to take them off before putting the hat in the wash or, in my case, through the wash.
Not the dry!! Thanks for that!

~~Also, a question: If the newly sharpened butcher knife is sitting on the cutting board on the kitchen counter and you reach across both of them to try and get something and you knock them off the counter onto your left foot, what kind of luck you must have to:
1) Have the cutting board hit first and 2) deflect the knife away onto the floor ??

A) Luck of the innocent
B) Luck of the Irish
C) Luck of the unworthy

Joe(still got all ten toes)Nation

Current Marathon prognosis: 5h:21m, with 12 more weeks to cut it down by 45 minutes. If my pace keeps improving at the rate it did over the last two weeks (and, just to anti-jinx, I'll say it probably won't), I'll reach my desired fitness level a month early. Indeed, if I didn't know better (more anti-jinxing), I'd be foolish enough to think I'm on the right track.

Still treadmill-running and arm-bike-churning in the gym. I hate to run in this hot and humid weather, I'm too chicken to run in the thunderstorms and the hail, and New Jersey offers no other weather to run in these days.

I'm skeptical, but my attitude about this question is pretty much like Frank's attitude about the existence of gods. (If you're not yet familiar with it, just ask him. He'll be happy to explain.)

Why don't you run clockwise rounds on even days and counterclockwise rounds on odd days for a while? Then chalk down your time and your heart rate. You can mark me converted when I see a statistically-significant pattern of you running faster, or your heart beating slower, when you run counterclockwise.

Challenge accepted

Somewhere in the archives should be several dozen laps to use as a baseline.....

Joe (and next week is all sixes, Tuesday, Wednesday,thursday)Nation

82 days to the start:
Got through a Wedding/Dog Watching Weekend fairly unscathed. Didn't get to run any miles on Saturday, too involved in walking dog, feeding dog, keeping dog from eating labels off the top of the bottles in the wine rack.

(Seriously, if someone offers you two jobs, one: taking care of a retriever puppy~about four months old or two: taking care of colic filled triplets. Go for the triplets. Their crib will probably NOT be in your bedroom. ~~yes. that's right, the dog's crate was in the bedroom.)

Got up early after dancing and drinking at the wedding
(reallllly FUUUUNN)
walked the dog, then ran the dog around the block
(partner reported puppy went back to sleep... )
then I headed out for the farmlands around Glastonbury

......and got lost in the twisty neighborhoods.

When I finally found the turn-off (Hooray for iPhone GPS Maps)that would have taken me up and over the mountain.....it began to rain....wisely saying "The hell with this." I headed back a different way, mostly downhill.

7.5 miles including the race around the block with the pooch.

Nothing on Monday.
Tonight, a counterclockwise lap of the Park.
Joe(off we go)Nation

You do understand that if your experiences are meeting your expectations it's time to raise one or both.

ahhhhhhhh

This week has been a complete bust as far as running has been concerned. I did get 7.5 in on Sunday but only dribs and drabs since. Last night I was set to run the park but the sky was the color of my charcoal suit and it was raining hard by the time I got to Overlook.

There's a chance for tonight, maybe Friday night, and then the Long 15 mile on Sunday.

Joe(losing my grip)Nation

I had a good run or two last night. First, up the hills to the bank (yea!) but that's only about a mile. The thing of it is, it's all up hill except for the last 600 yards.

Then I took the train(s) over to 59th Street and did the Big Loop clockwise. Almost everybody run the Big Loop clockwise, I haven't any idea why, but it was a good run the whole way (okay....I lie....I had to really fight myself not to stop at 2.77 miles which is the last chance for a subway stop to go home. Once I got going again...hey, no problemo.)

Hey, I won a shirt in the Charity Miles.org decathlon. If you run, or walk or bike, check out CharityMiles.org. You pick from a menu of Charities, run/walk/bike any distance and they send your charity 25 cents per mile. So, basically, I can donate $25.00 a month to various charities AND get my miles in.
The decathlon was to see who could run at least a mile for ten different charities. Ta DAH! I did. It took me two nights of trotting, choosing and sending.... . Fun. And they get money, and I learned a bit about several of them I had no clue about: Pencils of Promise(?)

I'm taking my gear to work today.....we'll see if the Park beckons at 6PM,,,

Joe(I hope she does)Nation