The last 8 weeks!

Took a mini mid-season break with 8 days off with only 1 light trail run and a massage filling my time.

Then I dived straight back into it with the next round of PPTC speed sessions on the Tuesday and one of the midweek 5K series races. That didn't go great, mainly as it was around 26 degrees and a bit humid. 19.10 was my time, and a lot of lost fluids.

We 'celebrated' 4th July. Not really, just went up on the roof where we could watch the fireworks display they have on the East River.

The iPhone camera doesn't really do it justice!

We have decided to do the Philadelphia Marathon which is third week of November, a couple of weeks after the New York Marathon which so many people here seem to be training for.
So I drew up my plan, hovering between what I did before and the next mileage level up, we'll see!

The heat is one of the main disadvantages to any distance running at this time of year. If you can get out before 7am, it's generally nice running to work but unless you wait until after the sun goes down, and a lot of people do, you just suck it up like I do and head out from work around 4.45pm. It's normally just the first hour that the sun is really bad then it's just down to how humid it is!

Sleeping in the bath, it's that hot.

At least I don't have a fur coat.

I'm coming up for six weeks in and just hit 17M last Sunday. So far so good, I'm doing a few of my long runs with English Ben from the club. I'm not used to that distance (other than races) without music but the chat is enough of a distraction and also plotting the routes to show him a few new areas of Brooklyn.

I wouldn't run many races during the training as they tend to just get in the way of a regular plan but then I was persuaded to enter the NYRR Team Championships 5M.
It is only open to club runners and the men and women run separate races with each club generally cheering on their runners from their own little cheering sections out on the course.

 
A lot of the bigger clubs have their own little baggage and food area in Central Park and the support zone was a novelty as the cheers were so loud as you ran through it.

Unfortunately it was super sunny and hot, so much so that it was the first race I've done where when I picked up my number the day before, it came with an info sheet.

Plus I started a little far back so I took it easy-ish for 4 miles then went hard for the last mile, finishing with a 5.59 last mile for 31.44 and helping the Masters team to 9th place overall.

Scotland 10K

Anne & Murd's visit was timed with Tartan Week here in New York which meant the NYRR's Scotland 10K on the day before they left. It had to be done, so I made sure they had entered the race a few weeks before they came over here.

Took them to New York Road Runner's HQ to collect their numbers the day before and combined it with a walk past the reservoir in Central Park.

Race day was sunny, cool, perfect running weather, one of the few races of that distance that I never took any fluids from the water stations during the race.

I made sure I started far enough up and pushed a little harder than last year. I ended up feeling strong and ran the first half faster than than last year and then tried to hang on as I was marginally slower over the second half than 2013 but I pushed for the line to crack 40 minutes again, 39.55.

It's certainly a rolling course running a lap of Central Park. Anne & Murd enjoyed it even though it took them a little bit to get past all the people in front of them and get settled into their running. Anne actually managed 4th in her age group!!

They had a great trip, I am knackered after planning out nearly every day with miles of walking every day and far larger dinners than normal each night.

Prospect Park was officially opened for the season this weekend, some more port-a-loos installed and the water fountains turned on, timed perfectly with getting back to normal and stepping up the training as I realised the Bear Mountain Half is around 4 weeks away, yikes.

Superbowl Sunday

My running has been on a bit of a hiatus since the end of last year, even before that actually. But I've started getting back into it, helped by the chance to get out and run in the snow as well as some races I've entered. The first one of the year was the NYRR Gridiron Classic, a 4 miler in Central Park on the morning of the Superbowl.
Apparently the Superbowl is only beaten by Thanksgiving in terms of the amount of food consumed by your average American on that day. The race helps with that but at only 4M I only burned about 480 calories so didn't make that much difference when we had our steak and roast potatoes.... and ice cream... and crisps.

A lot of people in their Denver Broncos kit and a few in Seattle colours, the mid-course vote, two mats with team headers gave 58% to the Broncos. In the end that couldn't have been further from what actually happened that night!

We've had so much more snow than last winter. It seems every few days there is another snow shower. It's fine until it starts disrupting the trains or gets too frosty and icy.

 Weather turned out to be a mild 4 degrees with little wind, much better than last year. Again, with 5200 runners the first mile wasn't that enjoyable, trying to find a gap and not trip up people.

I didn't really feel that great, it was a bit of a struggle. I had just gotten over having the cold and it must have still been present as my heart rate ended up averaging 199, topping out at 211 at the finish, I didn't even do much of a sprint finish either.

But I must have maintained some strength from last year as I average a decent 6.22 minute mile for 25.27, 114th overall and 12th in my age group.

Next up is the local Cherry Tree 10M on Sunday. I haven't ran more than an hour for what feels like ages so on my day off and with our soccer continually being cancelled, last Friday I ran the 8M to work, used the showering facilities and then took the train home. Now I feel a bit better about it and although 3 laps of the park isn't that enjoyable the fact that race registration is at the school at the top of our road and the start is short jog away makes it worth doing... as well as getting that race distance in early in the season.

Scotland Run

Last Saturday morning I perfectly commemorated my one year anniversary of moving to New York by joining nearly 8000 runners in the Scotland 10K Run!

It was a slightly chilly morning in Central Park waiting for the 8am start but as usual there wasn't the same wind you get back home in North-East Scotland so it turned out to be ideal for racing.
I did need a hot chocolate to wrap my hands round on the train ride home though.

The goody bag you got with the race number pick-up contained a saltire hat and a guide to various running events in Scotland.

Took a chance on my lighter weight Inov8 shoes and they were fine and light for a one-off race but I'd go back to my Saucony Kinvara for training or longer road races.
Enjoyed a slightly mangled version of Flower of Scotland before the start and Alex Salmond wishing us good luck.

Plenty of kilts in action © NYRR

As a New York Road Runners member they have one of my previous race pace times down as 6.42 so I had a reasonable starting coral but it still took at least 3/4 of a mile for the narrow-ish park road to clear enough that I didn't have to waste so much energy concentrating so hard on not running into people, trying to pass others and avoiding the banner tape on one side and the angled gutter on the other.
Thus, mile 1 was easily my slowest at 7.00, whether this is good in terms of forcing me to go off slower I've still to discover.

They had bagpipers before the race and also near each mile there was a lone piper. It did make me mildly homesick for a second, even though it's not like you encounter bagpipers during your regular day, unless you work around the Royal Mile or Edinburgh Castle I guess.

© NYRR

The course was a clockwise (for a change) circuit of Central Park and has a couple of slight hills. My splits after the first mile were 6.40, 6.27, 6.36 then combined with a slight downhill to the south east corner and the run to the finish, 6.17 and a 6.15. I was pretty pleased with my 40.38 finish time and training is going well for the Bear Mountain Half Marathon in May.

© MarathonFoto.com

© 2013 SmugMug, Inc.

I just happened to get dressed in blue and white that morning!
I finished in 330th and 50th in my age group. The winning times were a speedy 30.17 for the men and a course record 33.22 for the women!

Afterwards there were a few little tents with various Scottish based stuff including a Glasgow based band.

© NYRR

Partly due to the chilly weather the freebie race hats were out in force and the sea of blue and white combined with all the Scottish flags in the area was a nice sight.

As usual you're all done and dusted by 9am and get to have that nice feeling of walking through the park and a few blocks to the train when it's nice and quiet out on the streets. You very quickly become a typical New Yorker when you live & work here..... bloody tourists getting in the way!

Easter sightseeing

Firstly, last Friday at soccer, a couple of us were standing on the sidelines as our game started and were 'lucky' enough to see something like this flying across the sky.

We were a bit shocked as we didn't know what it was. It was super fast, like a rocket, flying straight, seemingly out of nowhere and then disappeared as quickly. Kinda scary at the time but I later read reports of meteor sightings up the Eastern coast of the US that night.

Heather and I went up to Central Park for a midweek run. At the entrance we happened upon some nutritional bar promo thing, nearly as disturbing as the meteor!

Then after our run we checked out some sculptures, United Enemies, at the opposite side of the park.

© Columbia Daily Spectator

The other pic I took was on my bike ride home one day I stopped at one of the piers in Brooklyn where the HMS Edinburgh was on a tour before being heading home to be decommissioned.