Tag Archives: running

I’m So Excited!

(And I just can’t hide it…)

You guys, Jess is awesome. She saw one of my posts about feeling like a dumb girl in the weight room and offered to help.

This morning, after I ran six miles, she came over and helped me through one of the workouts from Marc. I really didn’t feel confident enough doing the exercises in the gym, but she assured me I knew what I was doing and helped me where my form was off. We also talked about how when you’re following a strict training plan, like, you know, a marathon plan?, it sometimes feels like it makes more sense to just scrap a workout rather than do a workout other than your scheduled workout. Obviously, you should stick to your planned workouts as closely as possible, but if it’s between a class or no lifting because you are nervous to lift alone, take the class!

I’m now one strength training workout closer to my goal of two for the week, and I’m feeling more confident about hitting the weight room myself later in the week for the second one.

I’ve also made a killing on my to-do list these past few days, knocking out interview follow-ups and freelance proposals like it’s my job. (Oh, wait…)

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This may be the lamest lunch ever, but I’m also proud of myself for hitting my [nearly bare] fridge and improvising rather than finding a place to grab a sandwich.

But what I’m most excited about? I just chatted with Coach Marc, and we talked VDOT, a performance-based VO2 calculator that helps you predict race times based on past race times.

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Based on my sprint tri performance, I can apparently bust out a 1:48:40 half-marathon next weekend. While I’m a little doubtful of that, it gives me hope of shattering my sub-2:00 goal pretty handily.

Speaking of the sprint tri, that’s another thing I’m excited about today. NYRR finally updated the results, and mine are up.

Swim: 11:47 (241/424)

T1: 4:24 (340/424)

Bike: 1:09:26 (stupid, stupid flat) (421/424)

T2: 2:36 (317/424)

Run: 23:33 (I was wrong! So much faster than I originally thought.) (82/424!)

Overall: 1:51:45

So obviously there’s a ton of room for improvement, but I estimate the bike dilemma cost me at least 15 minutes.

Go play with that VDOT calculator. What kind of races can you achieve based on your past race times? Do you think I can really shatter a sub-2:00 half based on all this? (Either way it’s a win–you say something nice and I feel confident; you say something mean, and I get pissed and run fast.)

Running the High Line

My running coach gives me an awful lot of six-milers, and I usually head for the same running route, so some burnout is natural. I mix up my routes on the weekends, but during the week, I just want to get my run over and done with and not spend time traveling to get somewhere to run. Still, this route burnout has made it a little hard for me to get out the door in the morning.

Yesterday, I slept in and ended up getting a bad headache in the afternoon so I pushed my run off until today. When I woke up, I bummed around for almost an hour (where does this time go?) before finally pushing myself out the door to run six miles when I realized that the longer I pushed it off, the harder it would be.

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I ran down my West Side Highway path. The same route may get boring, but the gorgeous river views never do.

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Looking up 10th Ave from 17th Street.

Instead of running back up the path to the street closest to my apartment and heading east, I decided to hop on the High Line and run that to change things up a bit. For non-New Yorkers: the High Line is the site of a train track that lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air to separate it from street traffic. Trains stopped running in 1980, and the park was opened in 2009.

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Looking down 17th Street.

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Looking up the High Line at Midtown West.

I was never a morning person, but I’m starting to really love running in the morning and seeing New York just waking up. I mean, the High Line will never be this empty during the day.

My Garmin died a mile in, so I relied on my RunKeeper app for the other 5 miles. Cutting in east early shortened things, and by the time I was in front of Duane Reade to grab a coconut water, I was only at 5.05. “I could just cut my run short and round up,” I thought. “Nobody would ever know.” But I would know. And I was still feeling good and wanted to push things, so I ran in some circles to get the remaining .95 miles in, and then I felt even better having actually accomplished what I was supposed to.

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Having my favorite breakfast (sunflower butter, banana and English muffin) didn’t hurt either.

Do you mix up your running route or just keep running the same routes? Tell me about your favorite running route.