THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: A Haiku Collection

Tonight in the park

We did hill work up "Cat Hill."

It was really cold.

I put on cute gear

And cab'd it with Lindsay there.

We were kind of late.

The group had just left

So I haul'd ass to catch up.

So much for warm-up!

I plan'd to not race

But when we started uphill

I met a new friend.

He was really fast.

And I am competitive.

So I pick'd it up.

Coach Steve said "Faster!"

So I went really quickly,

Trying to pass him.

At the end, I did!

(Just barely, so I can't brag.)

A good workout, team!

The best part was when

Lindsay and I got dinner

At Neil's Coffee Shop.

Veggie burger, soup,

And a tall glass of water

Tasted really good.

The subway was cold.

Now I am home on the couch.

"Idol" starts tonight!

THAT. WAS. AWESOME.

It's 10:15 a.m. I'm back home and I friggin' demolished that race. Having been off my feet since Sunday's nightmare-cum-triumph, my body clearly wanted to get out there and hit the road. I met up with TnT this morning at 7:30 following an epic cab ride uptown chauffeured by a Bengali former soccer player who sent me off to the starting line with encouragement. Thanks, man.

Having been off a race course since last spring's Revlon Entertainment Industry Fund Walk/Run 5K (and I'm totally not kidding), I was admittedly a little antsy about race day protocol and getting everything in order. A few thousand people were out there in the freezing cold (literally) and the chaos at the baggage check area was more fun than nerve-wracking. Unable to spot co-worker Lindsay or this blog's very own Celeste, I made my way to the TnT hang-out spot where I ran into Janneke, one of the girls who usually keeps pace for me. Relieved to have someone there for speed consistency, I listened to Coach Christine's pep talk and got some pre-race advice from Coach Steve who changed everything today. In the cab I planned a scheme where I'd start out around a 7:30 pace for the first mile, ease towards a 7:00 pace around the third mile, get through Central Park's notorious "Cat Hill," and finally go balls-deep for the final mile. He told me to throw all of that out the window.

When I told Steve the game plan, he furrowed his brow and said something to the effect of, "Come on, you can do better than that." He suggested going out at a 7:10 and building to a sub-7:00 after the first mile. I doubted my ability to pull this one off, but his belief in my pacing encouraged me to give the race a harder try than I had planned. Janneke, Carey (the other girl I usually run with), and I began together at the starting line following a less-than-spectacular rendition of the national anthem. In the second corral behind the 6-minute milers, we hit the road at a comfortable pace. What I didn't know was how congested the course would be the beginning. I lost both of them about a quarter-mile in and went off on my own. At the first mile marker, I saw that I had met Steve's goal for me of a 7:10 first mile and started amping up the energy.

By the second and third mile markers, I was feeling good and saw on the race clocks that I was actually racing sub-7:00 miles. That realization gave me an absurd burst of adrenaline and I knew that given the short race course, I could really use it to kick the final mile's ass. Dressed a little too warmly, I started pulling down on my Under Armor a little bit before Cat Hill, slowed down a bit, and then shot up at the end where I was really excited to see all of our coaches screaming and cheering. I threw all of my shit into the final half mile and, breathing heavily, sailed through the finish line and saw the clock: 33:40. Give or take a 10-15 second delay at the starting line, that's an average 6:42 mile.

UPDATE: Final time was 33:23 / average pace: 6:40.

FUCK. YES. Tell that to the fatty in high school.

I was ecstatic and went to retrieve my bag with a huge, goofy grin plastered on my face, feeling nearly invincible. When I spotted my pack, I overheard a bunch of runners talking about the race. Said one speed demon to another, "Yeah, it was alright. You know, a solid 28 minutes. Felt okay." Said the other to the first, "It's all good, man."

Um...I suppose there's always room for improvement?

I can hear garbage men cleaning up from the bars on my block...

Celeste is a rock star. That's all there is to be said. While she worked her ass off this week, I wasn't able to get nearly as much time in running as I would have liked to (due to a number of circumstances, some good, some not so good). 

Runners say that the road is the great equalizer. We'll soon find out. It's 6:44 a.m. The sun is slowly rising over Manhattan, and I'm about to race the NYRR Fred Lebow 5 Miler (my second race ever). Game on. 

Sing us out, P.S. 22 Chorus.

A 5K a Day

Remember how I ran a 5K on Monday?

Yeah, well, I did it again last night. In 34 minutes and 47 seconds. Over three minutes faster than the night before. No big thing. No big deal. Whatever, I do what I want.

When Christine, the head coach, yelled out my time as I crossed the finish, I blurted "Holy Shit". Then I almost simultaneously vomited and peed my pants because I stopped running immediately instead of slowing down gradually. Dumb. My body was like HEY NOW. I was so surprised by that time. The only other time check I heard had me at an absolutely solid 11-minute mile but I felt that I was slowing down over the course of the race. As opposed to Monday's run, there are tons of gradual hills in the lower loop and we were going around it almost twice. I think it's safe to say that "hills" is up there with "winter" and "Gosselins" on the list of things I don't like.

I have to admit, I ran smart and it worked. I discussed with Jenn that I should actually take it easy on the few flat/downhill stretches on the lower loop and really push myself on the hills. This was a lifesaver and made me look pretty awesome when people would pass me on the downhill and I'd bound past them on the hill as they started to struggle.

I decided to start with the 11-12 minute mile group (after fighting an intense urge to go with the sub-9ers because Guy in a Dodgers Hat was taking off with them...swoon). People took off. I noticed that people are finding it difficult to pace themselves. It's so hard to fight the temptation to keep up with the person in front of you instead of listening to your body. So I really shut everything off around me and paid attention to my own comfort. I didn't speak to anyone and I don't think I looked further than ten feet in front of me the entire time. I was getting in the proverbial Zone.

What to think about when you're running alone?

Usually for me it's, "I'm going to die." But I diversified. I may have solved the meaning of life around mile 2.5.

After about half a mile, I was already negotiating with myself. Well, maybe I'll take a walking interval when I come back around to Bethesda fountain. Maybe I'll grab some water from my bag. Maybe I'll just do one loop. I got up the hill to Bethesda and considered. My throat was dry. But I went straight past. As I passed the "finish line" to begin my second loop, I started using that as my motivation. Every stride was putting me further from the start of the loop and closer to the end. I hit the glorious "blank mind" once or twice on that second loop and boy does time go faster when that happens. I talked urged myself through the hills and imagined an invisible gear shift inside of me.

In conclusion, I murdered that 5K because goddamn it was cold and I really just wanted to go home.

Pretty Much Everywhere It's Gonna Be Hot

This was not the weather forecast for New York City this weekend:

Thanks, Arthur.

As Scott blogged, it was one freezing week and as such, I did very little running. Wah wah.

After my emo Christmas post, I took myself out for a run in Boston and was only mildly thwarted by icy mud puddles of death (see exhibit A). I put in about 2 miles just to feel my body moving again. I also got my eating under control and I've felt very on top of my food intake this past week. Last Monday, Jenn and I did a good 4 miles. And after that? I hibernated. My full intention was to go to TNT on Tuesday but when I walked outside and got slapped in the face by a gust of artic wind I said oh hell no and got the first subway home. New Year's Day was not a day for anything more than purely existing. I also had full intentions to attend the early morning run on Saturday. I even set my alarm for 7:40am and put it on the couch. Why the couch? Well, since Morning Celeste is a far more difficult creature than Normal & Ambitious Celeste, she has to be dealt with in different ways. And by that I mean manipulated into a conscious state. Since I sleep in a loft bed, I would be required to climb down from warm cozyfest, cross the living room and turn off my nuclear bomb warning alarm. This would hopefully get me awake. The next morning, the alarm went off. The building shook with gusts of wind. Bleary-eyed, I padded down from my loft. Success! I plodded across the room. So close! Turned it off. You can do it! And climbed right back up into bed and slept another 4 hours. Wait, that wasn't in the plan. Hibernation is fun.

New Year, New Week. In TNT tomorrow we're running a 5k. My runs are consistently longer than the 3.1 miles of a 5k but as we know my longest continuous running interval is only a little over 2 miles. I wanted to freeze my ass off be ready.

Today, I arrived in the UWS to meet Jenn at 3pm. Despite wearing more layers than a delicious cheese oozing bolognese lasagna, I was still shivering. My goal: to run two laps around the Central Park Reservoir without a single walking interval. 3.14 miles.

And I did. BOOYAH. In 38 minutes...a steady 11-12 minute/mile pace. I couldn't feel my legs or my butt the entire time because of the cold. No big deal. Up until the final quarter mile or so, I felt pretty strong. I always start off grumbling and hit a stride after the one mile mark. Getting my mind to wrap around doing the distance of 9 loops instead of just 2 is a bit impossible but I feel one step closer today. To me this was an even greater feat than running 5 miles because it was continuous.

Fun Fact: Shouting "I'm on a beach! I'm on a beach!" into the wind does not, in fact, make it warmer.

A New Year, An Epic Tome

Celeste's RuPaul video posted a couple of days ago is about looking good and feeling gorgeous (aren't all RuPaul videos about these things? At least conceptually). At the start of a new year, I was really hoping to tell you all about a week filled with doing both. I failed on all fronts. I was a hot mess. In the words of Beyonce, I was a beautiful nightmare. After that amazing twelve-miler last weekend through the streets of Boston (look at Odysseus back from war, that hometown hero returning glorious!), I took a day off to get my shit together (read: go drinking that night and avoid the painful next-day hungover run) and recover from the long distance. Upon returning to New York, I went for what I hoped would be a nice night run down the southern tip of Manhattan. Enjoying the spectacular weather and my body's abnormally limber state, I pushed it pretty hard for about seven miles, feeling a slight heel pain around the fifth mile that worsened until the completion of the run. See the photo to the left for further details.

I thought maybe I had tied my shoe too tightly. When I got home, I called Dr. Mom, and explained where I was hurting. The tone in her voice was enough to let me know that we had a little problem in the state of Denmark. Apparently I pulled my Achilles (hence the Homeric nod in that previous paragraph) and needed to stay off it for at least a couple of days. Well, that sucked. I was at a point in my training where I was confident and looking forward to upping not just mileage but speed and effort and all that other good shit.

As Dr. Mom knows all, I took her advice and stayed off the road for a few days, skipping what looked like an awesome TNT pacing workout up and down Central Park. On Wednesday night, feeling better, I put on my snazzy cold weather gear (see left) and was ready to hit the road once more to see if I could figure this heel thing out. Running past my local drugstore on my way to that evening's planned course, I saw that the pharmacy was closing in five minutes in advance of New Year's and if I wanted my prescription, I had to get it then and there. Another fucking run thwarted. When I finally got home and dropped the prescription (and dishwasher detergent) off, I was too lazy to get back out in the cold. I promised myself I'd make it out there sometime on New Year's Eve Day before the night's debauchery.

Long story short: obviously I didn't go running. Instead, coming home from a (fabulous) party, I excited a cab and slipped and fell on a patch of black ice and PULLED MY BACK. Another couple days off the road; another TNT workout (this time, the long run - 11-13 miles) missed. I woke up at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning to see how my back was doing and could make a few steps before it started to cramp up. Instead of swiping one of my roommate's Gatorades and heading uptown, I went back to bed like a lame duck.

TODAY HAD TO BE THE DAY.  I woke up having celebrated my friend Pat's birthday with a few too many rounds of margaritas a little too late into the evening and told myself I'd need to boot and rally and get 'er done. An hour after chowing down on a banana and a PB&J on a bagel and properly hydrating, I put on about 1000 layers of cold weather gear ready for to bang out another 12-er. As soon as I left my building, I felt like Helen Hunt in Twister. Calling today breezy is like calling Beyonce talented. Today was tornadotastic (and Beyonce is prodigious). I was slammed with gusts of awful city wind and nonstop snow for the bulk of the first six miles. People on the street looked at me like I was an insane person. I cannot tell you how many times I debated turning around (or when I hit the West Side Highway, getting into a cab). At one point I actually screamed out to the sky, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?" By the time I got uptown to 72nd Street, I was so defeated and exhausted that I took a two minute walking break and used the 120 seconds to reflect on whether or not to keep going.

When I hit Riverside Drive (the halfway point), the wind subsided and the snowfall calmed down. TIME TO MAN UP, CHALOFF. I picked up the pace, ran over to Central Park, and knocked out the remaining six miles. Definitely not my finest run but a vast improvement over the first six; after feeling like the island of Manhattan was trying to kill me, I was relieved to see that I could still pound the pavement and keep it together for the most part. I mean, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, right? Something like that. 

So, yeah, I'm back and ready for action. Countdown to the Manhattan half marathon: THREE WEEKS.

Zen in '010

Happy New Year! 2010! It's the future!

Thank you for reading and for all your support thus far! You're helping us make this year our healthiest and most inspired yet!

So I may or may not have been reading Cosmopolitan's 2010 Bedside Astrologer at some point yesterday. Now, I'm no expert or anything but I doubt that Cosmo is the utmost authority on horoscopes. I've always pictured an intern writing the blurbs and not some person who actually, you know, reads the positioning of the stars. I was expecting something along the lines of Attached? Steam up your relationship with a spontaneous vacation around April. Single? A new hottie enters your orbit around February. But no! Right off the bat, first sentence:

"YOUR YEAR AHEAD Visionary Neptune helps you plan your next big goal (starting a blog, running a marathon)."

Wow.

2009 wasn't my favorite year. 2010 is going to be great. I can feel it in my toes. Onwards.