It's been a good year for running part 2

Took the two weeks off after Philly. Didn't have anything planned but someone posted some info about a trail race in Staten Island, a 10K, 25K and 50K, 99% on proper forestry trails!
SO I couldn't miss that, once I'd secured a lift, as it was also only a 30min drive.... albeit in a direction that nobody normally goes due to some aversion with Staten Island having some kind of Essex-like connotations.

I reckoned if my legs could recover enough then my leftover marathon fitness could get me round the 25K at a decent pace albeit not knowing the course and how hilly it was, it was kind of difficult to see a lot of previous race info for this event.

I researched previous years results and it was normally a smaller field of sub 100 runners in each event. Then they said this year that the 25K was a USATF championship trail event and members were eligible for the cash prizes on offer for the overall and age groups. So after much though, I gambled and paid the $30 annual membership with the hope of at least 3rd in my age group which would net me $50.

They clubmate I ran it with is a fast runner (2.53 NYC marathon) but inexperienced on the trails. Within the first few hundred metres we were leading! There was a group of 4 of us for the first few miles. I thought either we've gone of too fast, not knowing what lay ahead or because it was a smaller (non-roadie) field I would indeed have a good chance at an award.

After about 5 miles Shan and I were on our own. I led the whole way with him happy to follow on my heels. Apart from going the wrong way a couple of times, banging my knee of a log and waiting for 2 secs as Shan picked himself up after falling, we raced round averaging 7.46 pace and finishing together in 1.53.03. Shan was gallant enough to let me cross the line first mainly as he said I'd done all the work and he said he wouldn't have run that hard on that type of course without following someone.

We were a good 7 mins ahead of 3rd place and despite now having to wait for the USATF to get the results etc, I'm pretty confident of a $150 cheque arriving in the mail, ha ha.

The other funny moment was when we were waiting for the awards I overheard a couple of Scottish sounding voices and then when they went up for the 10K awards realised I knew a couple of the girls from the Aberdeen running scene. Then it turned out they were visiting the winner of the 50K who moved here earlier this year and is hill/ultra runner from Scotland.

In terms of 'it's a small world' that is right up there with the previous weekends Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot that I volunteered at and while taking entries met a couple from Elgin, she came from Inverness and he came from Aberdeen!!

Great last race of the year. I had three vastly different top 3 races, Bear Mountain Marathon, Philly Marathon and this more relaxed one. Along with PB's in the 5K, Half Marathon and Marathon.

It's been a good year for running part 1

Came back from Europe and had the small matter of dealing with my Permanent Resident Card. After two years you apply to get the conditions removed so we filed the paperwork/fees and I went for more fingerprints just to check I'm the same person and we're still in a valid marriage! Hopefully that will come through okay anytime soon.

Fine tuned my marathon training. The long runs finishing with marathon pace went well, I was managing 6.50-odd for the last 7M of the last key session and 7.46 for the lat 20M run.

I then had to decide on a race pace strategy. For this I was peer pressured into pushing myself!
The guys and girls around me on the Tuesday speed sessions ran 2.53, 3.01 and 3.03 in the Chicago and NYC marathons in the previous couple of weeks. So in theory I should be around the 3 hour mark too!

Everything was great in Philly. The weather was cold but sunny and good for running. Our AirBnB place was 0.5M from the start/finish and less than 15mins walk from the race expo.

First race I've done where I stood in the coral in warm clothing (and with handwarmers inside my gloves) that I could throw off just before the start.

I was able to get into my own race pace very quickly, none of the shuffling and jumping about to avoid other runners that I had feared given the 30,000 entrants and combined half marathon race.

I knew 6.52 pace was the three hour time but as they had 10K, 13.1M and 30K splits (timing mats) I tried to remember that 42.40, 1.30 and 2.08 were my guiding times rather than obsessing over every mile split especially as there were a couple of short moderate inclines and descents along the way.

I stayed relaxed and well in control. Went through 10K in 43.12 and reached the turn off at halfway in 1.30.47. I knew the last few miles were mildly downhill and also remembered a good quote/advice I'd read before my marathon debut that 20M should be considered halfway in a marathon, not 13.1M.

I was through 30K in 2.08.57 so roughly guessed I'd need 10secs under the 6.52's for the last 10K+. There was a run out to a township at about 19.5M then a turn around and after a slight downhill, a good run all the way to the finish so I picked it up after the turn. 6.38, 6.37, 6.29, feeling good, reeling in a lot of runners.
6.35, 6.29, I knew I had this when they had a clock with 2 miles to go and I had 15mins to play with even with a .2 after that!
A 6.27 last mile meant I covered the last 12K in just over 50mins and I crossed the line elated with my 2.59.09 (6.49 average pace). 280th position and 23rd in my age group for what it's worth AND a high-five from the Philly Mayor who was waiting on the finish line.

It was only the last mile when I really went for it that my body just wanted it to be all over.
But when I crossed the line and stopped running I was both so cold and ached all over. My calves and quads were the worst but even my biceps and back were aching.
Most pain passed and I was just left with really tight calves and sore quads for a week or so.

But I had that sub-3 glow!

A good meeting place

Best medal EVER

Eurotrip

Beginning of October I headed back to Scotland for the first time since moving over here!
We only had one day in Aberdeen before heading over to Prague for a few days then over to Amsterdam for another few days.

38.58, not bad for a belly full of dumplings

Singing to our section

Sightseeing, U2 in concert and a night time 10K in Prague along with a major amount of walking.
I won't go into everything we did but all photos are here and over on Instagram.

Back to Scotland and up to Inverness where we had birthday fun and I did my first Parkrun 5K. In trying to not lose too much fitness I then proceeded to do my 20M run. I'd average close to 50M a week since starting my marathon plan but dropped to 20-ish for the three weeks we were away.

Then we spent a few days touring the West of Scotland, particularly the area around Skye, my family and Heather's mum and sister along for the Scottish part of our trip.

Fairy Pools!

AKA, the Harry Potter train

Over the sea to....

As far as marathon training goes, I jumped straight back into it the week we got home and things have been going really well. The marginally cooler weather, still in shorts (just), and final 5 weeks of training left has seen my fitness improve dramatically.

3.15 is actually my age group qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. I don't have the pull to do Boston that everyone else seems to but it seemed an achievable goal when I started training especially as my first last year was 3.24-something.
I hesitate to say I'm now looking to maybe duck under 3.10 when I line up on November 22nd assuming the weather on  the day isn't too bad and these last 5 weeks go well.

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.

Diz-gus-ting - Queen's 10K!

Sunday's Queen's 10K was my remaining goal race for the year so far.

After the marathon and half marathon I went down to 10K hoping to use that leftover higher mileage training to get close to last years 38.11 at the same venue.
Oh well, best laid plans......

The night before there was a thunderstorm. They sent out notice they had delayed the start by an hour to 9am hoping the rain would have stopped and the course would be dry.
I was glad of the extra hour in bed and it seemed to have worked as there was only light drizzle when I left for the train around 7am.

The downside was the humidity was around 94% (21 degrees) and after a couple of miles I could already feel this wasn't going to work out well.

I started a little fast, 5.54 but the 6.06 2nd miles had me right on pace. Then my vest started to weigh me down as it was already soaked in sweat, ha ha.
Nah, more just the humidity started to work its magic and my breathing (and legs) felt heavy. I had to pour water onto my cap at each stop for all the good that did.
I started to slow, 6.16, 6.24 and I knew I wouldn't make that back up.

Mile 6: I'm flying, but inside I'm dead

6.19 and 6.20 was the best I could do to finish in 38.55.

The relief!!!!!

After speaking with a couple of people from the club, on reflection this was a decent time and without the humidity would've been right on last years time.

I came in 61st and 8th in my age group out of the 8650 finishers.

Everybody getting their globe photo

Al Goldstein PPTC 5K #2

Last Wednesday was the next round of midweek 5K racing.
I tried my lighter shoes this time and the weather was a little cooler so I had hopes of going close to my 18.19 from a couple of weeks ago.

There was a bit of a course change though as the park was heaving last Wednesday.
National Running Day meant NYRR had a stall at one entrance, no doubt enticing a few more out for a run.
More importantly it was the first in the Summer Concert Series at the Prospect Park Bandshell so as well as the line to get in being insane there were a crap tonne of people all over the top end of the park and even food carts stuck in the pedestrian/running lanes.

So it was two lower loops. A very slight uphill, downhill then the regular flat-ish run along the bottom of the park.

The start was a little funny as there were about a dozen kids who all lined up right at the front. Although when the gun went they were a bit all over the place as kids tend to be and a few runners were a bit put off as it was a little crazy for the first 200m.

The slight downhill led me to a crazy 5.38 first mile. But I managed a 6.03 2nd mile and another strong 5.53 finish. 23rd out of 318 and 3rd in my age group.

So I ran a PB of 18.17 on National Running Day. Nice!

Al Golstein PPTC 5K #1

Wednesday night, yup, four days after the half marathon I ran the first in the local 5K Prospect Park series. Through the PPTC speed sessions I got free entry into the series too!

Some PPTC'ers, I know two of them!

I jogged the nearly two miles to the start and my legs, especially my quads were sooooooo heavy and tight.
For a seven race series and one that didn't cost anything either, it's not like I was wasting money on it or that I wouldn't have a chance to run faster later on in the series.
I didn't look at my watch for any kind of pacing and just went for it as normal.
I ran strong and finished the last mile with good strength even though my quads were really tight the whole way round and especially when I crossed the line!

I had splits of 6.04 (up the hill), 5.53 (along and down), 5.54 to the finish. 5.56 pace for an amazing 18.19 time. I would have settled for close to 19mins the way my legs felt.
11th out of 218 and 3rd 40-44.
That pretty much equaled my PB so I hope to run faster when I have fresher legs... and put a vest on and maybe try my lighter shoes.

In other news, we finally bought a BBQ. Put it out on our fire escape and have already BBQ'd twice.

And we went to our storage unit and I swapped over all my winter clothing for all my summer shorts and tees, etc.

Brooklyn Half Marathon

A kind of main race for the year but not really... but kind of.
I entered this race before I had fully committed to doing the marathon at Bear Mountain but then thought with all that training I could get away with doing very little in the two weeks following the marathon and have a crack at reducing my PB from 2013.

It hadn't gone wuite to plan in the build up. I had gotten the cold again two days before Bear Mountain and although it was just in my nose and didn't affect me that much during the race I was laid out for the two days following, even having to take a day off work on the Monday.

The race, the cold and bike to work month meant I biked the 14mile round trip 9 times in the two weeks but only managed three runs of 4-5 miles during which I felt pretty shit and heavy legged.

Race day night I decided to go for it from the start and see if marathon training could keep my form and legs going towards the end. I also decided it was easier for me to gently cycle the 1.5M to Grand Army, lock my bike and jog the other 3/4 mile to the wave 1 check in area for the 7am start!

With the size of event it was, 26,500 finishers, pretty much the largest half marathon in the states, you had to check in your bag, go through security then enter your coral where the toilets were (no outside toilets), then wait. I think partly for security and partly to get people into the corals early instead of them hanging about.

I got near the front of my coral and in the end I was standing beside the 1.20 pacer which was a bit too much as the gun went and they disappeared into the distance. Indeed, the 1.25 pacer went past and slowly pulled away which was a little disheartening as I was running strong for the first three miles with some good splits of 6.18, 6.17 and 6.05 heading into Prospect Park. A 5K split of 19.26 was a nice surprise as all I could remember from looking at 2013's even splits were they were around 21 minutes.

The start is nice and scenic, slightly downhill, slightly uphill, round Grand Army Plaza and back downhill and into Prospect Park.

Grand Army circle

The Brooklyn Library at Grand Army

Some good signs on the course again, didn't really see many as I was really concentrating on this one, ha ha.

Up the dreaded hill in the park, but with the downhill exit out of the park onto a dual carriageway road, Ocean Parkway, ALL the way down (6miles) to Coney Island.

Park entrance/exit

I passed through the 10K split just before exiting the park in 40.17.

Once on Ocean Parkway I was determined to not look at the Avenue roadsigns that basically count down from Avenue A all the way to Ave Z and try and just get into a focused straight line run aiming for 6.30 pace. At this point there is much more room to run so I moved out a little and just did my own thing.

Rocking the PPTC kit

6.25, 6.30, 6.22, 6.28, 6.32, catching the 1.25 pacer, now in sight but feeling really tired. The last mile was pretty tough. I just wanted it to be over at this point.
I didn't feel I was going any faster but managed a 6.17 split up onto the boardwalk and as the 1.25 mini group crossed the line I gave it everything and finished not too far behind them and cracked 1.25, taking nearly two minutes of my last time in 1.24.46.

The last few hundred metres on the boardwalk

Really struggling

Am I gonna puke??

380th place but 29th in my age group which was fairly decent I thought.

It had been a little humid during the race but a nice temperature. There had been a chance of rain and indeed just as I walked to get my bag it started to rain. By the time I got my bag I was fast walking to get some shelter as the heavens opened. The other runners and especially wave 2 which didn't start until 7.40am got drenched. Although the way the weather is here, by the time I got the train back to my bike it was around 24 degrees and bright sunshine.

The family meet up and post-race 'party' was inside the MCU Park (minor league baseball) stadium.
It looked like this when I entered to take a sneak inside.

And when I seen the pics from later it looked like this!

Took the train back to my bike, bought a danish pastry at the farmers market and enjoyed a leisurely cycle home. My legs are sorer then after Bear Mountain though, must be the roads!

The novelty of an empty train

The winner