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.

The Big Endurance Challenge

The North Face Endurance Challenge Marathon at Bear Mountain. Big title, big race.

This is what I'd been training for through winter and what I'd nervously been looking forward to for the last couple of weeks ever since I'd started to taper down and have that tired feeling where you just want to do the race and not carry on the training.

This was the info from the course guide I'd been looking at all week.

Trying to plan out my fueling strategy and still trying to get into my head how the hell I was going to pace this.
From last year's results I thought maybe a finish time between 4.15 and 4.30 and somewhere around 10min miles would be good enough with a bit of luck to get close to the age group awards.

We left just after 6am and the roads were nice and quiet. As it started an hour later (9am) than the half marathon version I'd done the previous two years the sun was already out and heating things up nicely.

Partly having the confidence of a solid training schedule behind me where I barely missed a session and a love of getting back onto some proper trails meant I was really looking forward to this one.
We also took two friends along to keep Heather occupied while I disappeared for the 4 and a half hours!

Here's me smiling at the relaxed start of the race and an example of the mixed terrain that lay ahead.
There were regular marked trails, unmarked little trails and rocky stretches that they tried to guide you through rather than following any actual path.
There were a couple of real boulder scrambles where I had a little smile to myself when I looked up ahead and seen this was where the little coloured flags were directing us to go.
There were a few moments like that. Is it left? Is it right? No. It's straight ahead off the path and up through the trees. Of course it is!
There was even a 1/4 mile of Tour De France alpine road climbing with an aid station right at the top. At least I managed to get down to 6.40min mile pace coming down the other side, which considering I'd done 15miles at that point tells you how steep it was.

Back to the start. The first 4 and a bit miles to the first aid station were the same as the half marathon I have done the last two years. I really tried to go slower than my body wanted to knowing there was so far to go and so much climbing to be done.
They had a timing mat here and I found out afterwards I was through here in 19th place averaging 8.50 pace.

I had my shorts with their little hip holster pockets containing one gel flask with 3 gels mixed with water and a little soft flask with water. The plan was to take these if needed and consume the water and hydration drink at the aid station combined with trying to take a gel from my flask or the aid table every 30-40 mins depending on where I was on the course.
They had a volunteer stationed like a 1/4 mile away ringing a bell or shouting that the next aid station was coming up which was really useful.

It's getting hot out here

It didn't take long to heat up and despite being in the trees for most of the course the sun got through very easily. It got up to around 20 degrees which wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that I'd just trained through the winter for this and it had only really been this warm for like three days this year so far.

I used my Garmin to gauge the distance run but that's all really. All the training and knowing your own pace and effort helps as I would look at the watch to see 9min something pace one minute then 11min plus the next so it really helped that I was semi-comfortable knowing what effort I could sustain even though it was going to be an hour longer than I'd ever run before!
At the start the starter asked how many people were running their first ever marathon and there were way too many shouts of 'yes', I would've been really worried if that was my first marathon.

What path?

As I kind of suspected the race settled down after a few miles and as happens to me quite often I ended up running mile 6 to mile 12 all on my own with nobody in sight whatsoever!
I was alone in the woods, just running along following the little coloured flags thinking my thoughts.

There were a few stretches where I ran and ran and then checked my watch only to see a mile had gone by and I was barely at half way. 13M still to go?!

The mixed terrain and not knowing the course kept me going and also I started to run into the back end of the 50K field, maybe even the 50M competitors? I seemed to be flying compared to them of course.

At the 14M aid station I was up to 12th although as I say I didn't know this at the time.

The next aid station was just after 20M and Heather had agreed to be there to cheer me on. I've never down a race before where I felt I needed any kind of cheering on or support to help me through the race but on this one I was really looking forward to seeing someone I knew. I didn't really need a cheer just a little break and like a mini reward along with the hydration and gel!

Pour that water in my cap

Hey, posing mid race, a novelty!

Okay, better get going.

I ran off up to the t-junction, the tape was on the left corner and after 21M you're pretty tired so my head was down going up the short climb. I turned left and ran about 50m then thought, oh oh, this doesn't seem right as I couldn't see any more tape up ahead.
Just then, two runners came round the top corner and were saying that wasn't the right way. Just then we looked back to see another runner run straight across the road and up through the trees.
Of course it was straight up the hill.
The other two runners took off and disappeared out of sight, the other guy I slowly caught and passed which kept me going for that couple of miles!

With a few miles to go we met the 10K course which I remembered from the half last year. This time it was the marathon relay that were using the 10K for their loops. I sped past a couple of them and was feeling good knowing I only had around 2 miles to go.
Then I was thrown off slightly as the marathon course deviated up and over another rocky little climb, I was cursing the organisers at this point, what the hell.

We rejoined the 10K course and there were a couple of slight rocky little uphills on this never ending course. These last 3 or so miles really were the longest 3 miles of my life.

I felt good coming through to the finish but I knew I was totally done. As soon as I stopped, I downed some water and found Heather sitting on the hill.
I collapsed on the ground and my leg muscles were so tired. I've never felt my legs so tired before, like a weird pain where you can't sit still, I probably shouldn't have been sitting that was the problem!

I barefooted it down to the ice bath and sat for a few minutes and rubbed the cold sponge on my calves. We got some free food but after a bite of hot dog I decided I didn't really feel like eating that kind of food right now, I did down the entire cold Diet Pepsi though.

As we got ready to leave I went to check the results and was really pleased to see I had come in 8th overall and had secured 1st place in the 40-44 age group.

Look at the winner's pace, ridiculous!

The prize was pretty poor, a buff and a couple of gel blocks (ha ha) but after thinking back and despite not having any time reference to go off unlike a road marathon I felt this was the most proud I've been of how a race has gone for a long long time.

This event was tough. The terrain was unforgiving, very little flat or sections to relax on, total concentration required (I did trip 7 times!) and with the sunny weather and thre fueling needed to run for an hour longer than I've ever run before. I overheard some people say the 50K was one of the hardest 50K's you can do.
After the last couple of weeks though, I definitely prefer the trails and am going to pick out some more events like this in the future.

Interestingly my legs got rid of the soreness pretty quickly and I look forward to seeing how they feel when I bike to work during the week as it's Bike To Work month here in NYC.

Onto the next one, I have the Brooklyn Half Marathon on the 16th so we'll see how my legs feel when I actually try to run!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Something we have had on our to do list for a while is to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.
Neither of us had been before and Tuesdays are free admission. So now that Heather's work exam is out of the way we decided to head out of the house for around FIVE hours in the 95ºF sun. And yes, I did get a little more sunburn.

The gardens are 102 years old and sit back to back with the Brooklyn Museum and guess what they have in their car park....

Thankfully we did stop halfway round for some lunch and to refill our water bottles.

They also had some cool (not temperature-wise) pavilions so we jokingly went inside for a couple of minutes into the desert zone, the tropical zone and the warm temperate zone as outside wasn't obviously hot enough for us.

They had some thistles, which I've also actually seen in the scrub between the trees opposite our house!

The best part though, was probably the Japanese garden complete with its carp & turtle laden pool.

Like all good school english stories I'll finish it by saying "a fun day was had by all".

A short hike

Last week, myself, Heather and two of her friends went on a hike. One of her friends is possibly doing a Kilimanjaro trek next year so needed to try out some new boots. Plus I get out of the house and get to see another new part of America!

We hired a car and drove the 50miles from the centre of Manhattan to the Bear Mountain area. This involved heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, up the Palisades and back into New York state.

Bear Mountain Bridge

We parked at the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site car park and once we'd found where the start of the route was, it was fairly straight forward. I even remembered how to read a map.

But what with everything being back to front in this country, I found out that the dotted line on the map turned out not be a thin wooded trail like back home, but instead a larger forestry road.

Short and steep was the order of the day:

© http://www.nycdayhiking.com

Popolopen footbridge

The footbridge was all smashed up from the last storm in the area but luckily the water was low enough and there were enough stones to make our way across while staying dry.

Once over the water it was a fairly steep climb but really enjoyable. Bone dry rock but even had to use my hands a lot to pull myself up. Once we got to the top the view was superb.

The same bridge we were level with at the start

As the area has some old forts and historic battlegrounds, there is a cairn at the top in memory of fallen comrades.

Plus it borders the US West Point Military Academy so we could hear gunfire from the top of the hill away in the distance.

The weather was again, really hot and sunny but luckily there was so much shade on the route otherwise I would have struggled. I took a litre of water with me, but we had to stop at some guys house in the woods on the way down to refill our bottles. When you start to run low on water and are a little dehydrated it's really easy to see how you just want to pour all of it over your face.

For the whole route I've never seen so much wildlife under your feet. Centipedes, tonnes of those big daddy long leg type spiders, ants. Even seen the tail of a snake slither away under a rock. A big hawk circling the top of the hill. But the big winner on the day was this guy right by the side of the road.

Independence Day

The weather has been so hot and sunny during the day and it means that nearly every night you get these red-ish skies as the sun sets.

Every so often in Scotland you get a "red sky at night, shepherd's delight" kinda moment but it's pretty much like this every night at the moment.

This was taken from our window (with a powerful zoom ;) looking across to Manhattan with the new World Trade Centre buildings under construction on the left hand side.

Yesterday was the national holiday for some kind of independence from some other country or something.

We just spent it downstairs with the neighbours having a BBQ and then when the fireworks started at the back of nine we went up on our roof. They used to be on the East River but unfortunately they moved the celebrations over onto the Hudson this year, we still got a reasonable view though.

In other news, my paperwork is FINALLY ready to roll. My new cv is just undergoing the finishing touches and after a lot longer wait than I thought, I can get in touch with the real world again, and get a job.... somewhere.