I'm not sure why I've lost some blogging momentum. It's been a busy week. I'm back in Florida now and the return trip really knocked me out for some reason. No idea why. Here's a tip, though: New Jersey Transit is not fun when there is a downpour. Try to avoid it.
I did a bit of rearranging for this week too. I have two long-ish runs: 7 miles and 8 miles. Both are shorter than last week's 10 mile and this is a taper week. Yay taper week is all that I have to say. I was very much ready for one. Anyway, I decided to run at least one of the long-ish runs before I returned to Florida, which was likely a very wise decision. Then I had to move some stuff around because I was completely knocked out upon return. However, I am on schedule (sort of) to finish this week, even if I'm pretty sure that the 8-mile run will have to be more of a run/walk deal.
TUESDAY -- 7 miles and farewell NYC
After doing the 5K Brooklyn Bridge run, I came up with a crazy scheme to do some seriously tourist running for my final NYC outing. My motto for this run was, 'If it is scenic and in my neighborhood, then I am running past it.' I started with Fort Greene Park. There is one really stupid thing that I did not anticipate: probably they built a fort there because it was an elevated location to provide a good outlook in case of marauding...well, whatever was marauding (I thought maybe Southerners but a little research reveals British). I then decided to run across the Manhattan Bridge, take a left, and head back via the Brooklyn Bridge, finishing things off with the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (remember the motto of this run).
If you are a person who often runs bridges in urban settings, you probably already know why this was a bad idea. Alternatively, if you are a person who knows New York well, you can probably deduce why this was a bad idea. If you take a left after the Manhattan Bridge, forget about running, Jake, because it's Chinatown. And there are approximately one billion people milling around at any time. That's right. They all moved from China to New York and hang out only in the Lower East Side (okay, not really. I exaggerate. But the streets are quite crowded). It's really hard to pick up anything even approximating momentum and you wind up walking quite a bit. The Brooklyn Bridge was also not my best idea since there were approximately one billion tourists seeking to cross it (New York gets very crowded in the summer). However, I wasn't the only person trying to run it, so I didn't feel like a total newbie.
The Brooklyn Heights Promenade was probably my best plan for this run. I liked it so much, I ran it up and back. And again, I cannot laud the New York drinking fountains sufficiently. There is one approximately every five feet on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade--and this time, I am not exaggerating.
WEDNESDAY -- The best laid plans can still be thwarted by NJ Transit
I was ouchie and tired. I decided to take a day off. I don't want to point fingers at the fact that I had to stand from NY Penn Station to EWR on the commuter train because they were only running half of the normal trains because apparently when it rains, half of the trains get scared or something and refuse to come out and work. Also, my flight was delayed (see 'Rain'), so I got home relatively late. My hips were crazy tight. I did make it to yoga class, which helped, but still wasn't ready to run.
THURSDAY -- Florida being Florida
After much, much putting off of running, I finally did don the shoes and get out. It took me until almost 8pm to reach this stage, but hey, I got there. The plan was to run 6 laps around my condo complex to approximate 4 miles (I think that it would be closer to 4.2 miles, but okay). There was only one flaw with this otherwise brilliant plan: apparently I still can't do this at night without needed to walk. Blah. Florida, you win. Honestly. It's just too much with the heat and humidity!
The good news is that I still finished, even though some walking was required. But it was still irksome.
Upon further review: yesterday was one degree off of a record high for temperature. Adding to that, by the time I got out (around 8pm), Weather Underground informs me that it was not only still 84F, but the humidity was 79%. This is over the threshold of ick. Add in a dew point of 75F. The Real Feel temperature (according to Weather Underground) was 95F. Around 8pm. With the sun down. Dude. Come on.
FRIDAY -- The Best Laid Plans Sometimes Don't Work on Fridays
I had a great plan in mind: do some errands and running around in the morning, go to yoga, run 6 x 0.5 miles on the treadmill. Except that on Fridays, my gym closes at 5pm, which is after yoga is done. So instead, I did this outside, which was less successful from an 'actually running fast' stage. However, it was somewhat ingenious from a 'dealing with Florida' phase since I took a break between each interval to recover. Sure, I had to slow down significantly from the first two half-miles. But it's the principle of the thing.
Remaining this week are a 3-mile and an 8-mile. I am kind of already accepting that I will have to walk in parts of the 8-mile. This may hold true for the 12-mile next week as well. It is just too oppressive otherwise.
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