Marathon Training: Week 5

I've been spending so much of my time running lately that it's started taking over my thoughts.  I think about how I can go faster, hold out longer, chafe less, and ignore the intense heat that I feel whenever I'm out running in the humidity and sweating all over the place.  I hear the Pace Lady, as I've taken to calling her, in my head, telling me that my pace is at 11 minutes per mile, or seven and a half minutes per mile, constantly fluctuating as if to mock me, and still it's probably the most accurate running app I've used so far (including the watch I used to use with the foot attachment).

At least I'm pretty sure I can rely on my legs.  My upper body might be doing all kinds of crazy things with the sweating, and the heart racing, and the constant need for more air than it seems possible to glean from the air around me, but I've hardly felt anything at all that's worried me about my legs.  Occasionally my calves or my knees will make themselves known more than they should, but it hasn't really gotten to the point of what I'd call pain.  I think that could serve me well if I ever worked up the nerve to try an ultramarathon, but I'm not there yet.  I still haven't gotten through a regular marathon without hitting a point where my legs made themselves known quite vociferously, though I'm hoping that'll change if I can get my time down far enough under 4 hours.  My best so far is around 4:15, but last year was the first time I got really serious about sticking to an official training schedule, and the one I'm on this year is more intense than that one.  It's been working out pretty well: I'm on week 5, and I've actually been running more miles than I've been scheduled to.  It can be hard to fit the runs into my schedule sometimes, but the only time I've outright skipped one was last night when a thunderstorm was raging outside.  Even then I took the opportunity to get back to P90X and do some plyometrics.  I definitely felt that it my calves this morning, which I hope is for the better.

In three days I'm doing the second NYRR Long Training Run in Central Park.  I'm either going to go 16 or 20 miles, depending on how my legs are feeling.  I've gotten to 20 before, but I'm not even sure it's a good idea to be running that many miles so long before the marathon, when I haven't been running anywhere close to that distance yet, nor do I need to in order to ramp up to where I need to be.  I've got 11 weeks still, and a number of long races to run before then.  I actually feel bad that I've scheduled so many races, since it leaves only a few weekends when my wife and I are free to get out of the city for a couple of days.  Even when we do get away I'll still have to keep up with my runs, since my schedule has me running 6 or 7 days out of practically every week.

Running has also become a major part of my Tuesday nights now, since that's when I'm taking my running class.  Including the warm ups and cool downs, each class has racked up nearly 7 miles for me, and some of them are the most intense miles of my whole week.  I've done three classes so far, and two of them have had us running loops in the north end of the park, where the most punishing hills are.  I've run some of my fastest miles there, but I can't keep up that kind of pace, and by the third of the three laps I've been dropping back a pace group to keep myself from keeling over.  The other week the course took place along what are roughly the last three miles of the New York City marathon, which helped remind me what I'm in for in November.  There were two minute breaks between miles during the class, which helped my pace tremendously.  Lord knows I won't be running nearly as fast after I've put 23 miles behind me, but it still felt good to know that I can keep up with everybody else when the hills and the humidity are a little less intense than they were on the nights when we were in the north end of the park.  I'd have to say that, from my two experiences with the NYC marathon so far, the mile coming up to Central Park has to be the most dispiriting mile I've ever run, since it's uphill pretty much the whole way.  It's not even a steep uphill, but it's constant, and it comes at a time when most runners don't have a whole lot left to give.  I'm not looking forward to that mile this year, but hopefully I'll be better prepared for it than I've ever been before.

Wish I Was There...

I'm writing at the end of the day instead of the beginning today, since I ended up getting in here late this morning.  The reason for that was because I forgot to move my car last night, and as a result ended up having to spend a half hour driving around the neighborhood looking for a space.  I should really know better by now, but I suppose my memory will never be perfect.  It feels like the parking situation in Bed-Stuy has gotten noticeably worse every time I've forgotten to move my car the evening before.  Some streets are even lined with double-parked cars that are sitting around specifically in anticipation of the street cleaner coming through.  It's enough to make me want to give up my car entirely (or buy a space in the lot nearby, although I still balk at the notion of paying $200 per month for something that STILL isn't technically worth it in opportunity costs when compared with the gas I spent looking for a space and the time I wasted doing it).  Along the way there were a few near misses, and at one point I'd actually parked my car and gotten out of it before seeing the "NO STANDING" sign that somebody else had already parked in front of.

It's times like this when the density of New York starts to bother me.  I've said in the past that I don't think I'd be able to enjoy life in a small town, and I still believe that's true in the long run, but every so often I feel a desperate need to get away from here, and this is one of those times.  It's been a couple months now since I've left the city, actually---I feel like I'm overdue for a trip.  Going to visit my brother in California over the Labor Day weekend, and heading out to Iowa the weekend after that may help, but I can't commit to anything sooner, since I have NYRR runs scheduled for the two weekends before that.  I really wish I could take more than a long weekend's worth of days off, too, but I'm still working off all the time I took for my honeymoon, and I don't feel like getting myself in any deeper just yet (plus I'm going to need to take off a couple days around Christmas anyways).

There's also the notion of just taking some time to hang out at home, since it feels like one social responsibility or another has been tugging at me.  Then again, the prospect of staying at home might not be so appetizing once the contractors invade my apartment in the near future.

Plus, when you come right down to it, is being "away" necessarily even a relaxing, restorative experience?  In order to reach whatever haven you're heading for there's going to be a trip involved, be it by car or plane or train or whatever, with all the attendant stress those modes of transportation entail.  Worse still is the trip back, where the deadening grind of the commute steadily unravels what peace of mind you managed to gain from the trip.  Okay, so I'm being cynical here: not every trip is stressful.  In fact, some can be quite pleasant.  There's no way to be certain when you leave, however, what kind of travel experience you're going to have.  I'd be the last one to argue, though, that something shouldn't be done because you're uncertain of the outcome.  I guess I'm just arguing in circles now.

I'd love to get upstate sometime soon, before it gets cold.  There's so much more space up there, and the lousy cell coverage actively encourages me to cut the cord and engage with the world around me.  My family has a place up there, but I'm not sure that any of them have been to it yet this year.  The house was my grandfather's legacy, and now it would appear that his descendants are too busy to enjoy it the way he did.  It's an old barn that my grandfather converted into a two-story home by the sweat of his own labor, and I have many fond memories of making the trip up into the mountains, through the trees, to a place where there are blueberry bushes to pick in the daytime and millions of stars to gaze upon at night.  It's a quiet place: a place where drive-in movie theaters can still be found, and where being early to bed and early to rise can reward you with the sight of deer grazing in the fields.  There's even a baby grand piano up there...  It might need tuning, but it still plays well enough.  Plus, there are miles upon miles of potential runs to take, with hardly any traffic to worry about.  Maybe I'm romanticizing it too much after being away for a while, but I feel a powerful need to return there soon.  I may have to wait a month or two, but I desperately want to find a way to make it work somehow.