Archive for September, 2009

Today’s commotion was my downstairs neighbor yelling in the courtyard at a man on a ladder who was working on the building.  She was screaming at him for “watching me while I was walking around undressed.”

A couple hours later, I notice someone opening my door with a key (my desk is a foot away from the door).  I freak out and open the door after a harried “who’s there?”, turns out to be the owner of the building who wasn’t even aware this apartment was occupied (everything’s done through a rental agency).  He was investigating the alleged problem with the guy on the ladder, don’t know what he needed to see in here, though.

As for running, let’s see what’s been going on since I wrote last.  Sunday was supposed to be 17 but I had a really bad pain in my lateral shin from the previous day’s hill repeats (which started the day before that) and I got really scared, so I walked about 3/4 mile.  One of those times when you’re all “this is new, it feels more serious, there’s no muscle there so it must be a sfx!” so I went online when I got home, read scary stuff for about 2 hours (because if you’re going to make yourself miserable, you might as well do it up right) and decided it was a fibular sfx.

Such thoughts I had, like how horrible to be this close to doing something of substance and now  my running “career” is over and what the hell am I going to do????  I’ll get fat and lose my fitness and have to come back in 2010, slower and older and I brought this upon myself, oh what have I done? waaaaahhhh.

Turned out to be shin splints.  First time I’d had it in that location, but taking yesterday off and a bunch of ibuprofen fixed me right up.  I’m telling you, I was afraid to use The Stick, thinking I’d break my leg clean in two with shards of bone floating around.  I’m really an idiot some times.

Today was a Hudson run, 3 easy, 3  from MP to 5K pace, 3 easy.  I did it no prob, not even a hint of leg pain, lol.

I’ve got a big Half this weekend, the infamous PDR that landed me in the hospital last year, so I’m hydrating my ass off and will be carrying my small water bottle.  I’m thrilled that the weather looks like it’ll be under 60 degrees for the start.  Not feeling hugely confident about racing, though I’m not sure why.  Part of it is just feeling complacent for not having raced in a while, it’s scary getting back into it and having to see where I’m at.  Anyway, I’ll be shooting for sub 1:33.

What else?  Oh yeah, shyster fucking car inspection assholes got me for the usual $535.  I know they make it up because on the phone he lists the stuff and says I need a new battery, so I say uh-uh, that is a new battery, so he says OK and takes if off the list.  If he can take that off the list, then why is anything on the list?  Has to add up to $535 is why (I swear, when I take it there it’s always that amount of money..but it’s convenient to walk home from, sigh).  I’m just dividing it by 12 and telling myself it’s $45/month to use the car.  That hurts less.

In kooky news, I got an email today sent to my Voiceover website email asking if I was Flo Karp the musician?  Turns out it was someone that used to play in my band and he had been listening to an old song of mine and then found me on the web.  Was too cool to reconnect as he’s had a big full life since then and so have I.

Looking forward to tomorrow, my friend Simon comes down from NYC for a bunking party at my hovel, then a big Ikea shopping expedition.  I can’t wait to unload on him, the poor man. :-)  I’m expecting much laughter and a couple buckets worth of tears, too.

I haven’t talked much about Nick, but we’re doing great (as great as can be under the circumstances).  We took each other out for two excellent birthday dinners the first week of September (two Virgos) and have spent some time together since with dinner/tv and a morning coffee, phone calls and emails, too.  Life is strange not living with him but it has to be and I’m just grateful that we’re both from progressive backgrounds so remaining close friends is a given.

And that’s about everything on my mind at the moment.  Tomorrow I’ll go out for 12, then I can relax about mileage for the rest of the week because even with the day off last week, I wracked up 70 miles (actually 69.90 miles…I am not a slave to the decimal, dammit!).  So I figure tomorrow will be a slow and comfortable 12, then the rest of the week will probably go 10 w/strides, 9, 5w/strides, Race.  Eek.

Yesterday it rained all day though I managed to find a dryer window early in the morning, only got poured on for a short time.  It was supposed to be my hill rep day but I didn’t feel like going over 12 (and a hard workout, besides) with the threat of rain so I made it a vanilla 8.

Two interesting points about that run. 1. My garmin wasn’t catching on my windowsill so I did something I never do, wore my Timex ironman watch, purchased at the start of C25K and tossed to the side about a week later once I’d bought a Garmin.  Not only was I Garminless, but I had totally forgot how to use the watch and neglected to check the instructions before I left the house, though I did manage to find the Chrono bit, I couldn’t figure out the lap part of it, so basically ran nekkid.  It was a nice change.

Interesting point of the run #2: While running with the watch, simultaneously trying to figure out how it worked, the wind blew my hat off and as I was chasing it down, I fell flat on my ass in the middle of the wet, slippery street.   Didn’t hurt at all, was just funny, though the one guy that saw me pretended not to notice.

Today’s run was even more eventful as I heard a car crash into some trees.  I would have seen it but there is a wall at the point where it happened, so me and a bunch of other runners ran up to the wall after hearing that awful noise and saw the driver get out of her car, so apparently she was ok, but it was still a scary scene.

The run was a goody because it’s the workout I dread the most, hill reps.  I know they’re good for me though, so there was no way I was getting out of it but man, did I dawdle before leaving the apt.  Workout was 12.75 miles with five 3min reps @ 5k effort.  Should have been a 9 mile workout but that ole hill is inconveniently placed a little far from home.

Someone on the Marathon Training Forum mentioned a really good deal on gels and other edibles at REI so I thought I’d post it here.  If you buy at least 12 single serving items of any combination of product, brand or flavor, you get a 20% discount so check out REI (the link will take you directly to that page).

And that’s about it for me today. Hope everyone has a great weekend with some stupendous running, or at the very least, running that doesn’t suck.  Later, my sweets!

Catch up for the last few days…

Monday was an 8.2 mile recovery run @9:19, Tuesday was a mixed pace workout, 12.75 miles that went: 3 miles easy, 15min@MPish (7:23), 1min rec, 15min@HP (7:04), 1min rec, 15min@HM-10k pace(6:51), 3.75 miles home…7:59 avg. for the entire run.

Yesterday, I took a day off.  No real reason except I haven’t had one in 9 weeks, nor have I had a cutback week during this period, so I figured I was due.  The annoying thing is that I figured today’s run would be all sprightly for having had a rest day yesterday but it turned out to be the opposite.  Heavy legs and I didn’t have any energy, so I managed a sluggish 12 at 8:46.

Tomorrow is set to be hill reps, though it’s supposed to rain all day and because of where Smile Hill is, I’ll have to run about 4 more miles than the workout calls for, so I might do something else instead.  We’ll see.

Aside from running, life is up and down.  My apartment continues to be a source of joy and grief.  To think I was so excited to get away from the nail gun that had been banging away next door at Nick’s for the last 3 months (the building next to his has been under major renovation and it’s been months of noise starting at 7:15am, 6 days/week), only to find that I live in the loudest apartment I’ve ever lived in – and I lived in NYC for 15 years, probably 6 apartments there total, none of which compares to this.

The bedroom is extremely quiet, thankfully devoid of any street noise, but the guy who lives above me wakes me up in the morning with his footsteps through my ceiling.  In the living area, the buses and motorcycles are non-stop…it’s truly hateful.  On a positive note, there is  a funeral home a couple doors away which seems to do a booming business and the groups of mourners as they wait outside beneath my window are oddly comforting, their quiet voices and light conversation calming with all the hustle and bustle surrounding it.

What this noise crap is doing though, is lighting an even bigger fire under my ass to get some major income over this next year so I can get a better apartment and wouldn’t you know…I’m also going to need a new (used) car very soon.  I’m even wondering if I should go to Boston in April since that money could be better spent elsewhere, I’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

The good news is after all these years of making websites and pretty much sucking at SEO (search engine optimization), I recently figured out a key process that I never had a handle on before, so I’m expecting some major success from optimizing my old sites as well as some recent ones I’ve just finished, plus I have a handful of new sites I’m going to build.

Now what I should do is make a fresh voiceover demo and send that out and about, but frankly, I’m more interested in things I can do entirely on my own which makes web marketing a more interesting and entertaining pursuit.  It’s like a game of strategy – huge fun.

A side effect of this recent tunnel vision for the web stuff and building a moolah empire is that it has equalized my running freakdom in a healthy way.  I’m no longer spending copious amounts of time on the forums or messing around with my running schedule and daydreaming about running.  Don’t get me wrong, I live for running, that hasn’t changed, but it’s a constant in the background and I feel confident that as long as I do the workouts, it’ll continue to build quietly and steadily without me constantly poring over my logs or trying to figure out how fast I can get in X amount of time.

I’m sure that’ll change in a couple weeks as PDR is happening the weekend after this and then Philly will be sneaking up soon after, but it’s nice for now anyway, to have another main focus beyond what I can or can’t accomplish out on the road.

Well ok, this is only the second time I’ve run on a birthday, but the Running Gods were truly smiling upon me this morning.

First off, I slept on my brand new mattress I had bought yesterday morning.  I couldn’t take the fold-out couch anymore because the front room is just so loud with motorcycles and buses going by, so off to Ikea I went, where a gal can find a good  mattress rolled up to fit in a car and can carry it home all by herself (god, I love that).  It’s got memory foam and is most fabulous.  Thankfully, the bedroom is way quieter than the front room, but I haven’t lived below anyone for several years so the creaky walking above my head is annoying, though I’ll get used to it, it’s city living after all.   But I digress…

The weather was gorgeous, 70 with no humidity to speak of.  As mentioned in the last post, Hudson called for 18 Hard (MP+10%).  That means 8:15s for a 7:30MP.  I strapped on my HR monitor to better see what “hard” boils down to. Frankly, I didn’t think 8:15s would be hard but since he said it would be, I was ready for it.

Well, Hard never happened!  8:15s never happened, either.  I locked into around 8:09s for the bulk of it with the last 3 miles at 7:57, 7:56, 7:54, so the entire run averaged 8:05 and my HR? A comfortable 71%HRR (aka 77% MHR).

I did have one 8:16 mile where I stopped to refill my water bottle but didn’t stop the clock, but other than that…can’t believe how fun, exhilarating and not hard it was.  In fact, when I was 4.5 miles from home, as I crossed Falls Bridge and saw the sun reflected off the river, I couldn’t help but tear up with joy for being able to move like this, to feel beautiful and physically adept at 48 years old.  I am so lucky and beyond grateful for this most incredible gift I’ve been given, the magic of running.

I moved yesterday, so today was my first run from the new pad.  It was a little weird since, except for a couple vacation runs, the old place has always been my starting point.  One thing I love about the new route is that there’s no 2-block hill to cap off my run but what I don’t like is there’s no 2-block hill to cap off my run (I always thought that bit toughened me up some).  Might just detour to take in those blocks sometimes.

The move went really smoothly – the film people left a day early so I was able to cart a bunch of stuff on Wednesday morning, then I spent the rest of the day packing boxes.  All that physical labor and anxiety made me think yesterday morning’s MP run was going to suck.  But it didn’t.

The run was 14 w/8 at MP (shooting for 7:30s).  My MP splits went like this: 7:36, 7:32, 7:24, 7:25, 7:27, 7:28, 7:27, 7:24 for an average of 7:27.  But the best part was my HR, which averaged 81%HRR and didn’t climb like a mo-fo.  Here’s my HR in graphic form so you can see that it was pretty steady. With 11 weeks of training still to go, I am beginning to think my goal could really happen.  (providing no hurricanes, snow storms or mudslides, of course)

As for my running these past weeks, I’ve been going like clockwork to where 70′s ain’t no big deal.  Here’s what August looked like (plus an 8 miler on the 31st).  Note the 71s…it’s ’cause 71 is more than 70. 

Click on it for a larger pic.

This week I’m set for 76 with what Hudson calls a “hard 18″ on Sunday (which also happens to be my birthday…48, woohoo!).  By hard, he says MP+10% which comes out to 8:15/mi.  Shouldn’t be too tough but you never know.

OK, I’m pooped but now that I’m fully in my crappy new apartment (it’s got cute points to it but is basically silly small with a lot of street noise) it’s time to start getting back to the forums and see what everyone’s been up to.  Must do some blog reading, too, there’s much to catch up on.

Have a great Labor Day, you Americanos, and as for you foreigners, may your weekend be a goodie.

I wasn’t going to post again till I was in the new place, but current events warrant some writing.

The plan was to move today, Sept. 1st.  I got the mover all lined up and ready to go.  About 5 days beforehand, hundreds of yellow flyers appeared around the neighborhood, the gist of it was, “we’re shooting a movie in your neighborhood and will be here from the night of Aug. 31 to Sept. 2nd.  We’re also going to be posting “no parking signs” within a 3 block radius of the filming area.”  (FYI, this is an extremely difficult area for parking on any normal day, forget having all those blocks taken away)

It turns out to be a huge movie, James Brooks directing and starring Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson and Reese Witherspoon.  They are shooting this thing two doors down from our house. (Nick’s house, that is, the one I’m moving out of).

What does this mean?  It means I had to cancel the mover and get a new one so I could move on the 3rd.  It also means I was on the phone with the location manager 4 times while he tried to make me think we could work something out for the 1st, though I’m glad I didn’t believe his lying ass since there’s no way it could have worked.  It also means if I want to do any lite moving before the movers get here, I have to carry it to the new apartment on foot.  It means…I HATE THESE MOVIE JERKS.

If one more person says “Miss, Miss…” trying to stop me while I walk up to my apartment, I will tear them limb from limb.  I already told one guy to fuck off.  I’m pissed.

Then, I go to my new apartment  just now to drop some stuff off (because they wouldn’t give me the keys till today) and find 4 plumbers there, totally dismantling the water system.  They’re separating the heat in the building so each apartment gets charged separately, which I knew was going to happen, but not on the day I take possession of the apartment!  So it’s a good thing I changed my moving plans because there’s all those strange men in there anyway.  They’ll be there tomorrow and again at the end of the week, too.  !@#$!@

In happy news, August was a record running month for me: 320 miles.   This Thursday, the morning of my move, I’ve got my first MP run of the season, 14 w/8MP.  Kind of excited to see what’s what on that score. I hope it goes well but if not…whatever.  All this messy life stuff puts some perspective on running, though I’m insanely grateful for having it (talk about natural Prozac).

That’s it for the moment, sorry it’s just one long vent, but it’s been a trying time and I’m not good with unsettled business, which I have in abundance.  I’ll write again after I’m moved in and hopefully, have some normalcy back in my life.

Now, I’m going to spit out the window at whatever movie asshole is roaming around below.  Bitter?  Oh, yes.