The Joe Nation 2007 NYC Marathon Log

Hey soz. that's how I started out. Turns out I was running according to what my body remembered, not according to what it was currently capable of. When I slowed down, I was able to run for way longer. But it's not satisfying. Legs remember the pace they used to run at, and I need to get there, else I feel like a slug. I also have to get back to "4 tact" breathing (breathe in for four steps, breathe out for four) instead of 3tact, which is what I'm mostly doing now.

Joe, I could NEVER go around twice. But when I feel ready, I'll go to the next bridge on the way back, on the other side of the road. When I was down there, I only made it to a gym with a friend of mine. She's not a running type. Couldn't be coaxed. Next time I'll go alone.

The loop you describe is almost 2 and a half miles not counting to and
from your home. Sounds like the training is coming along well!
http://www.runningahead.com/maps/4bc48c79367d421a8a2408ebcb99b659

Nice work George.

i can't get it to draw a map for me. i wanted to add the bit from my house and back.

This I like.

So it's 3.6 miles... with occasional detours that I do... so maybe 4 miles all in all. Goal: 10 miles in an hour.... or is that crazy? can't be. i'm doing the 4 miles in half hour now and feel sluggish. ok, this RunningAhead thingy is GREAT!

Cool.
Just do a little bit more at a time. Go a little farther and see how that feels the next day. Jog along, slog along and then, for a couple of hundred feet, really burn rubber, then back to jogging.

Want to burn fat? Trot along quickly for the first twenty minutes or so, then slow down to a pace where you can sing or talk out loud. Do that for the rest of the loop. Watch the bacon disappear.

Add distance in ten per cent increments. 12 miles last week? No more than 13.1 this week. (then feel how that feels and add on Or not next week)

Joe(bits and bites)Nation

Joe, that all sounds very sensible. But it presupposed that I have


PATIENCE!!!


which I don't. I want to be a stellar runner right now. Yesterday.

sigh. I'll see what I can do. It's possible that I'll just double the path (due to next bridge over on the way back being where it is)... but perhaps I'll combine it with soz's interval approach or some combination thereof for starters when i expand the path.

Then we can all get together for the next Marathon!!! (or just one ! as it is not very plausible with my track record)

Did 6.2 again this morning.

Scudding clouds, puffy winds and a spritz of rain made me want to go faster, but by listening to the NPR crew of NYC mewl for money I was able to keep myself in check. Only after reaching the five mile point did I allow myself to push out against the elements. I found that I can get to a point where I am not breathing hard but I am running much faster than my normal pace. I kept that up for about 3/4 of the last mile including up the last nutbuster of a hill.

Then I wandered around in the woody parts for a bit, took some pictures and watched a dog enjoy himself by going on point every time he spotted a squirrel.

Joe(Look, Boss, there's another one!!)Nation

Here's the article about interval training (lemme know if the link doesn't work):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/fashion/03Fitness.html?ex=1179633600&en=82ac78e40f129ffa&ei=5070

i like how her outfit changes, or whatsit that happens to her when she runs

My current interval workout goes like this.
On a 4.78 mile loop,
10 minutes warmup jog,
4 sets of 3 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy,
and a warm down jog the rest of the way back.

it's raining..and it's cold...mwah wah waaaah. For two days I dress up in running gear and then look out the window and postpone and postpone...and then not go. I want to be like Joe who runs through rain no matter what.

I used to like running in rain. Not in wind, though...

i love it when it's warm. nothing nicer than a warm summer rain. but it's outright nasty these last two days. i ended up not going today. sigh.

There is a certain amount of stupidity needed to participate in any sport. Okay, not stupidity, stubbornness, uh, um, er, no, stupidity is right.

In golf, you have to be stupid enough not to know that it's impossible to pitch across that creek onto the green. (You stupid son of a bitch, yelled my companion, as the ball stopped about eight feet from the cup. "You mean 'lucky', right? He paid the bet.)

In baseball, you've got to be stupid enough to try to steal second right after that catcher with the grenade launcher for a right arm threw out your team's fastest runner. (He paid no attention to the fat guy and gave me six steps.)

In bicycling, you have to be stupid and nuts to start a breakaway with seven miles to go. (They didn't see me again until the awards ceremony.)

In running, you have to be a little stupid not to know enough to come in out of the rain when you are training, but then comes the morning of the Norway Run and it's pouring pitchforks and everybody is miserable except for you. For you, it's just another rainy day. (I set a new personal record for the mile.)

Some of these things happened, some of them are fig newtons of my imagination, all of them are possible.

Joe(Oh, yeah... and I'm a wuss sometimes, more than you know.)Nation

Yesterday at noon it was 42 and drizzly, barely more than a mist. So I added
a cap and a nylon wind jacket to my shorts and tee shirt. For the first three
miles it was uncomfortable, but no big problem. Then with a mile to go, the
rain decided to kick it up a notch. Nothing to do for it but step up the pace.
It was a cold, miserable mile, but one of the fastest I've run in a while.

Try this one.

Good one, Bill, but I couldn't get it to mind me.

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Been a steady drizzle here in NYC for the past two days. There was no one on the loop on Friday morning except for a few bicycles and two ambulances (?) What the?? They zoom by, lights flashing and you think "Well, over this next rise is some poor duff who crashed his bike or a codger whose heart decided THIS was the perfect morning to stop mid-stride or..".. but then there is nothing to see over that rise. No mangled bike, no one being lifted like a log onto the back of the ambulance, just the two ambulances sitting side by side on the roadway with the driver's yapping back and forth through the open windows. (Vultures, I mutter as I run by.)


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There is no better motivator for going fast then the advent of incoming weather. Once upon a time in Oklahoma, we were riding our bikes way out in the country. Off in the distance we could see the thunderheads of a big storm rising. Out there you do the math, if you can see the rainline -it looks like there is a curtain hanging down from the cloudbank, -- the storm is about fifteen miles away. Since the average storm moves at about thirty five miles per hour you've got about twenty minutes to find some place to get hunkered down. You do not want to be out on the plains when one of those greenish black cloud formations starts hulking over you.
So we started riding really fast and LO there at the far end of a section line we saw the lights of a Seven-Eleven, out there is the middle of no where. Now some big drops are falling and I have my Carabella hooked up and spinning at about 30mph, my head is low and I am gazing at those distant lights knowing that it is going to be close. I come zooming around the corner and turn into the parking lot.... .

A gravel parking lot as it turns out and just wet enough that even though I got my ass a WAY BACK on the bike and even though I had both brakes squeezed up all the way to the handlebars, I skidded and slid and banked and skittered over the whole sixty five yards and did a perfect head and shoulder tackle on the side of that convenience store.

Brick convenience store.

Nothing broken but my pride

Joe(and my helmet)Nation