Archive for August, 2009

Hi folks, just a quickie to say I’m taking a short vacation from blogging and visiting the running forums till after I’m in the new place.  In pretty good spirits though – been working like a madwoman from early morning to midnight every day.  I knew it was serious when I finally closed the Firefox tab for the RW forums, something I always have open.

The thing is, I’d been worrying about finances and rejoining the rent-paying world, but like a gift from the heavens, I booked a bunch more voiceover jobs and then I had a major light-bulb moment for some non-t-shirt websites I’m working on.  So joy of joys, I’m not freaked out about dough anymore – I’m gonna be just fine.

I want to wish you all a great end of August.  Run well, my friends and I’ll see you back in September.  Big smoochies for you 

P.S. Runforlife, I know you were waiting for more designs before ordering a shirt but with all this other stuff going on, I only got one done, it’s the design in the ad on the right menu: “Running Tattoo”.  That’ll be it for awhile.

Just in case I wasn’t sure the weather was sucking big ones, there’s been an “Air Quality Alert” here for the past couple days.   Summer in Philly rocks!

Got up early these past few days to deal with the heat wave.  Last night I couldn’t sleep for thinking about some web thing I’m working on so I only got 4 hours of snooze in.  That, combined with the heat made for a dreading-the-workout morning.

Hudson called for 4x6min@10k pace w/3min recoveries and while I hate the fact that last week I also had to fudge 10k pace, there wasn’t any way around it today – 80 degrees and humid.

I didn’t do so bad considering, but it was tough getting there.  Splits were 7:06, 7:02, 6:59, 6:52, so 6:59 avg for the fast bits, 8.42 miles total for the run, avg pace 8:04.  My mantra was “stick around 7:00, all you need are 7:00s” because when push comes to shove, it doesn’t matter one whit whether you’re at 10k pace on a hot summer day, it only matters that you ran hard and fulfilled the time.  Which I did.

In other news, I got the apartment.  Bittersweet news, for sure.  Made somewhat a little more bitter in that I had planned to get a kitty and when I went to sign the lease today, I found out they don’t allow them.  Also, some stupid weird thing in the lease said if the refrigerator breaks, I have to pay for it.  WTF?  It’s a new one, so I’m not planning on that happening but the fact that they felt the need to type out that particular clause was somewhat curious.

Back to running…anyone besides me turn into a big spitter in this weather?  For the past few weeks I’ve been hocking up some thick, long white stringy spit which I think is due to the humidity.  The one good thing is I’ve become better at aiming and shooting, though I wish I didn’t have to do it at all.

Tomorrow is a pretty long MLR at 15 miles with, wonder of wonders, nothing special to do in it!  No progression, no strides, no nuthin’.  I’m looking forward to taking it slow and easy and will savor the fact that all I have to do is run.

I haven’t run a “real” Long Run (18 or over) since Steamtown, back on Oct. 12th.  It’s almost embarrassing considering the forum I hang out in is Marathon Race Training and there, most everyone is a serial marathoner so they’re always running long.

Was looking forward to today’s 18, though with a high today in the low 90s, I had to get up at 5:30 to get on the road a little past 6am.  It was 78 degrees when I started, 80 when I finished with a dewpoint of 67, so humid as usual but bearable.  I brought my 20 oz handheld which I refilled once, along with a few slugs from the fountain, so probably drank about 46oz.  I also took a gel at mile 16.

The first mile was really slow, 9:27.  I don’t even go that slow in recovery runs, but sometimes you can’t fight the sludge.  Got up to speed after a couple miles, then after about 6 miles I stayed around an 8:20-8:15 pace.  About 4 miles from home, I began my Hudson Fartlek Fun, 12x30sec@10k-3k pace.   “3k pace” ha ha, good one.  I was satisfied with my “close to” 10k pace.   Avg pace for the run, 8:29, wrapping up another 71 mile week.

All in all, a really good run.  Comparing last year to this, I feel much more prepared for a marathon.  Not only from having one under my belt, but my mileage base is really paying off now – makes an 18 miler feel like nothing special.  Last year was tougher.

While we’re reminiscing about last year, remember in Steamtown my feet got really beat up from not tying my shoes tight enough for all those downhills?  Bruises, blood blisters and I lost two toenails.  So it’s almost a whole year later and my two big toenails, bruised below the cuticle line (before you even see a toenail) are almost, almost, all grown out.  They still have matching ridges about 1/8″ from the top, soon to be clipped off for good.  Can’t believe how long it took (and my nails and hair are fast growers!).

On that gross note, I’ll leave you for today.  Hope you’re all finishing up your long runs now if you’re not already done, it’s a hot one out there!  Later kiddos.

As it turns out, Wednesday’s shithole ended up being a pretty cute apartment with a great layout. The only thing “eh” about it was the industrial blue wall-to-wall carpeting, but I can live with that. It’s just a couple blocks away which’ll make it easy for Nick and I to share some dinners and TV watching.   It’s also as close to Fairmount Park as I am now and still only a few blocks walk to the start line for most of the races around here.  With all that in mind, I dropped off my application this morning and should hear in a few days whether I got it or not.

As for running,  today’s workout was a little over 8 miles with 2x15min.@GHP w/1min rec.  I wore my HR monitor because it was a Half Pace workout and I’m doing a Half in 5 weeks, so I made a deal that I wouldn’t chide myself for a higher avg HR (guaranteed due to the weather) as long as it didn’t show a sharp constant rise, which would mean an unsustainable pace.

I was aiming between 7:05 and 7:10 and was happily surprised to average 7:03s.  My HR was not bad either (83%HRR) – lower than the slower tempos preceding my May Half when the weather was great.  Makes up for the uninspired 4x5min@10k pace I did on Tuesday.  Guess I’m making progress after all, despite feeling like I’m dog paddling these days.

In unrelated news, my best friend Simon has a small part in  “Julie and Julia”, the movie with Meryl Streep playing Julia Child. You can see him in this clip, he’s in the grey jacket (next to the lady in the red dress) asking a question of Meryl. We met 30 years ago in musical theater school and lived together for many years in NYC, so we’ve a long history together. Anyway, so proud of the boy, as always.

More hugs to you wonderful readers with such big hearts, giving me all that positive support in your comments for the previous post. What did I do before blogging?

OK, have a great weekend everyone, run well and drink up! I want to see clear pee from each and every one of you!  Well, not actually see it, but make it so. (h)

Nick and I have been talking about breaking up for a while, lately very seriously and have finally come to the achingly sad conclusion that it’s time.

The worst part is that we’re not mad at one another so there’s no rancor, no mean words to help end this thing with finality, just the mutual understanding that the end of an era has come. Five years together, living together for over three.

So yesterday I looked at an apartment. Nick came with me. It was a shithole. I got home and burst into tears. Everything is just so fucking sad right now.

The funny thing is I may end up living downstairs for awhile in a newly vacant apartment (from when Nick’s son moved out). We’re talking about it, it has a lot of positive points to it, so we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’m going to look at another shithole today (I know it will be for what I can afford).

And that’s the dealio.

Had a soaking 16 mile progression run yesterday, so wet I managed to short my Shuffle (the on/off button stop working). Since I’ve already fried one Shuffle, I knew what to do: dipped it in water when I got home and then shook it out – salt deposits are more evil than water. Pace for the 16 started with a 9:00/mi and finished with a 7:32/mi, averaging 8:29 for the run, culminating in a 71.5 mile week.

That wrapped up my first two consecutive weeks in the 70s. I’ve only had one 72mi week while peaking for my May Half, so I’m pretty happy with how normal it feels. I remember being kinda pensive in the Spring when I imagined this marathon cycle with its raise in mileage but like most things, thinking about it is harder than actually doing it.

The mileage plan for the next few weeks is one more 70mpw, then I sneak up to 76mpw for the following two weeks. With this gentle mileage build, the harder workouts ahead become the main physical push without the added stress of a bunch of new miles on top of it. Hopefully this’ll keep my legs happy throughout.

I’m looking forward to this week, Hudson finally gets the party started: Tomorrow’s workout resembles a regular interval session instead of fartlek (4x5min@10k pace) and Friday moves to standard tempo work (2x15min@HP w/1min rec.). His slow build worked out great though, it was exactly what I needed after being out of the “fast running” loop for a couple months.

Today was a 7.5 mile recovery run with hill sprints at the end. The one thing I’m discovering at 70mpw is that I have a real reason for recovery pace – my legs ask for it. In general, I rarely do recovery runs as McMillan prescribes, usually the slow end of the easy scale is enough, but now…slogging feels yummy.