The Joe Nation 2007 NYC Marathon Log

My actual classes start at the end of July, every Tuesday and Thursday night. They last ten weeks which gets me to the second week of October. Until they start I am working on adding 5-10 percent mileage a week every week until I get to about 24 miles average. I've fiddled with a schedule now for about three weeks (and got sick in the middle) so now I am slowly catching up.

I figured out a perfect spot to do intervals yesterday (I am kind of a dope) all this time I have been looking at these markings on the West side 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 and just realized they are what the classes use for their training. Thick.

So I am adding those in a couple of times a week.

Good news. I am one of lottery winners for the August 5th NYC Half Marathon so I have a confirmed spot in that race.

20,000 plus expected.

Joe(no more plodding)Nation

Adding 5-10 percent each week sounds reasonable.

Congrats on getting into the Half Marathon, but running 13.1 miles in
August in NYC? Whew!

If the weather folk are to be believed, it should be near 90 at lunchtime.
This means a very slow, very short jog with water bottle in hand.

I did 5.85 yesterday, picking up the pace on miles 3, 4, and 5.

Yes! Loving these skies and temps.

Did the 5.25 horseshoe yesterday morning. (faster 9:25 mile) I am going to lollygag about four today to put me over the 20 mile mark for the week.


Joe(I am still learning to drink from a Gatorade bottle without making my shirt orange.)Nation

Are you going to create a "lollygag" run type for your chart?

My favorite type is "fartlek".

I think under the right circumstances lollygag could translate as fartlek.

When the term first showed up in the 70's(?) (I know it's older than that) we said "Why don't we just use the word "speedplay" which it IS supposed to translate to. The folks running running at the time were against using anything that sounded like fun, I guess, because 'speedplay' never gets into ink.

I did a little over three yesterday. I cut through the fountain area to see how things were progressing. (Major renovation going on. Re-digging whole section of the pond/lake.) Then I trotted, yes, just like the dog I am, up to the North Woods which I never get to see because it is always dark when I get to that point and I cut through a big section of trail and moseyed along until I stumbled onto a path that led me back to the road.

I measured out the meandering and it came to 3.54 and it took me about forty minutes to do that, so there was a small segment where I wasn't exactly asleep on my feet.

Here's the thing: adding 3.54 to my 2007 total gives 299.9 miles. If I had counted the walking from the drinking fountain at the end of the run to the subway station at 110th Street I would have topped 300.

Joe(Damn, this is a game of inches)Nation

Were you to think of your running line as a means of travel you would be about 20% into MAine by now.


NYC toSabbathday Lake Me is about 300 mi.


Farmer- (glad to be of help in compiling your "triptick" to the Shaker Village )-Man

In my own pursuit of "svelticity", Im hitting a wall of boredom. Ive trudged over so many of the same sections of fields s wamps and woods that Im calling groundhogs by their first names and they dont even budge from me anymore.
I need a new challenge, one in which I can combine my exercise with a bigger need to see more of our great country. Perhaps I shall look to buy a Schwinn bike at an auction. (I know that such bikes are laughably passe) but theres work involved in their mechanical advantage, its not acomputer aided extension of transportation technology. I can see me on my tricked out Schwinn or Columbia, looking like a bigger version of PEe Wee Herman.

Maybe Ill even get a saddle holster to carry a Red Ryder lever action 200 shot beebee gun. Dogs will fear me. Fiirst stop-Gettysburg

I watched a woman trying to climb Great Hill yesterday on one of those one-speed bikes. I was standing at the drinking fountain getting ready to head to the house when she appeared at the bottom of the hill.

She was not up to it. The bike was not up to it, but she soldiered on, standing up on the pedals and pressing down hard with each leg in turn, making a few more wobbly inches up the grade.

Pushing the bike would have been easier but that was not the task.



That's her on the left.

It took a painful ten minutes, the bike nearly standing still several times, for her to get that far.

Joe(the steep part is around the corner)Nation

I didnt say it was gonna be easy. Im gonna have legs like a frog.

Had to run the store on Sunday (grrr Holiday weekend) so I got up early and did the 5+ horseshoe with a little side trip to the Park Police HQ. (Cleanest restroom in the world.)

This morning I wanted to start by seeing Lady Liberty in the harbor. So I got on the number 1 train, but remember tourists, they always screw the schedule up on the weekends, so we all had to take a bus from Chambers Street. Past the Mysterious BookStore and the Fountain Pen Hospital. (I need to go back.) Past City Hall and the World Trade Center site which, at least from what I could see, is still a very large hole in the ground. There is the new Path Station for the trains from New Jersey.

I got off the bus and walked around the ferry building to the south edge of Manhattan.

You can't see her in this picture. Liberty is right between the pilings.


Anyway, here's the starting point. It's just to the west of the ferry building.There was still a little fog hanging around in the salt air.
The first mile or so was perfect.. Leafy overhanging trees on a smooth running surface. Folks sitting on their sailboats, sipping coffee while reading the paper... (how much would it cost to own a slip for a 35 foot sailboat.. don't tell me.)

It was all quiet along the waterfront with several boats, tugs and barges and pleasure craft making their way around the harbor.

All that has to end at some point. There is massive construction going on down at the south end and as soon as I turned the corner at the end of the park I was hit by the sounds of traffic and a breeze full of concrete dust.

This is looking back South from whence I came. The next three miles were about the same.
There were some diversions. Two ambulances and a mounted patrol, they were attending to some poor fellow in the back of one of these. I didn't stop to inquire why.

There have been at least two cyclists killed on this path, both by cars which had either gotten lost or were driven by drunks. The Westside Highway is rightnexttothepath for long stretchs as is another reason I don't really like running here. The cyclists themselves, (and here I should mention that I was a long time long distance cyclist and have over 50,000 miles of riding under my saddle.) are kind of stupid. That's unkind, I know, but they ride way too fast for conditions and at the spots where traffic crosses often, nearly always, ignore the signals and just travel into the path of cars coming from the left or the right. (They ain't going to win that bet every time.) That's why I try to get down here before any of them get out of bed. It's also why you see more of these:


Okay, so I got past the three horsemen (hey, ma, I ran faster then three horses!!!) and I put the pedal to the metal thinking that I would turn off at 34th Street but I missed it and ran all the way past where the Frying Pan will be IF they ever let them re-open, to 42nd Street.
Another half a mile to the A train and headed home for breakfast.


Joe(I was very happy to see those red balls of the subway stop)Nation

I finally ran a reasonably long route again, over to Wakefield, around Lake Quannapowitt and back. That's nine and a half miles.

I have no interest at all in the marathon, or whatever - but I love the little travelogues!
Keep up the good work!

Thanks Margo. It's a lot of fun.


WAY TO GO, George!!


Joe(how you feel?)Nation

WOW, theres a fountain pen hospital? Do they have an ICU? I have a few pens that I dearly love but have too fine points that are won away and now the pens write like quills.
I also have one of those little Parkers that sends out a little ink probe and sucks ink out of the jar without immersing the tip. Ill have to bring em along next week and see about getting em fixed


PS, in boat world, you pay for a mooring or slip , by the foot, usually in MAine, we pay about15$/ft per month on the water and 20/$ .ft to store it over the winter in BIG Barn. Ill bet NYC is vastly ore expensive but we ionly spent one night at the base of the Hudson and then continued North to Albany and the Canal. Those moorings prices were set by the state and were quite reasonable.

I'm in a bit of a "down" cycle right now. Everything seems to take more
effort than it ought to and I have trouble hitting my rhythm. It happens.
I just have to work through it.

Are you sure about this marathon thing?



strikes me as a bad idea. then again, there are many bad ideas out there that are thoroughly enjoyed by people.

How often have I said...

...seemed like a good idea at the time?

Not enough base training.

Joe(and I'll bet he didn't stretch after finishing.)Nation

I ran to my mailbox today (approxitmately 100 yards round trip) and by the time I got back to my front door the sun, high in the sky when I left, had now set.