Juno we got snow?

If the storm forecast hits the UK news then you know it could be bad, right?
The local news basically had this as their story for the entire 30 minutes. I mean, look the weatherman has his shirt sleeves rolled up to show it's worse than normal!

I forget who makes certain decisions here, the Mayor or the Governor but they made the decision for the first time ever to close the roads to everyone from 11pm and also shut down the subways then too.
It was supposed to help the gritters and ploughs along with any emergency vehicles and a lot of people joked that they got a better nights sleep as it was a lot quieter.

I somehow didn't think it was going to be that bad but some people did what normally happens and queued around the block to empty stores of certain foods earlier that day.

I can understand if the forecast was for a week of snow but however bad it was supposed to get, it was only for one day! Maybe a lot of people normally order food in over here and never have "proper" food in their fridge?

I watched the roads outside get quieter and quieter, it was definitely weird to see.
Then the scary part was at 9pm, my phone made this weird alarm sound (despite being on mute!) and displayed this emergency message.

I also got an email and creepy voicemail from work saying we had closed at 6pm and would aim to be open by 12pm the next morning.

It was like Christmas morning when I woke up, I peeled back the curtains and was wholly disappointed with the results. Elsewhere in New York got a lot and other states like Connecticut got hit hard but it was just a regular snowfall in most of the city and Brooklyn.

For the first part of the morning the trains were still suspended.

Just after 9am they announced they would be back on, running on a Sunday schedule. TBH I didn't notice much difference heading to work, apart from it being nice and quiet!

This was my morning walk to the train. All out in front of the houses people were clearing the pavements, a lot of people had the day off, all the schools were closed.

I ran home that night and most of the roads were cleared.
They stick a plough on the rubbish lorries to turn them into snowploughs.

With the snow it always makes the sky and the dark areas a lot brighter so in the end after I ran under the bridges

I headed up to Prospect park and managed to get a couple of miles through the snow.

So it was a bust, as they say but already there is talk of another inch or two tomorrow and another "storm" at the weekend.

Freezing cold rain

A couple of Sundays ago I headed out for one of my long weekend training runs. I tried to vary where I was running once I started doing the slightly longer runs. This was the 14M route I'd decided on the day before.

Of course it was pouring rain but I didn't think it was too bad when I set off. Unfortunately 40mins later I was soaked through and freezing, like really really cold. By the time I hit the water an hour later (with an hour still to go!) I was ringing my gloves out under the Verrazano Bridge.

There was nobody out there! The rain was so cold. I ended up in the park on the corner of Bay Ridge praying the toilet was open so I could use the hand dryer, which I did... for 10 minutes.

I toughed it out, mainly as it was too difficult to find a train back home. No stretching when I got home, I jumped straight in the shower and my fingertips were tingly for the rest of the day.

I'd say it was good mental prep if nothing else but I actually did the distance I set out to do uncomfortable as it was.

End of year and 2015 goals

We had a quiet Christmas and New Year. I ended up working Boxing Day, New Year's eve & day but had the weekends off, so as usual I was losing track of what day it was!

Like our decorative wallpaper?

I finished 2014 running around 1230 miles (760 in 2014) and biking 535 (975 in 2014).

My indoor speed session training is going well and I definitely feel stronger already especially as in the last 3 weeks I have started marathon training again!
I haven't entered yet, but I have decided to go for the Bear Mountain Marathon first weekend of May.
That's the one I have done the half marathon for the last two years but now I have the confidence of completing a marathon, a trail version has gotta be fun?!

The positives so far are that I am already back up to 13M and felt good. The cold weather means I haven't felt the need to eat and drink but I know when I go further I should. Plus as there are only a few aid stations on the course I might have to get used to carrying a bladder of some sort.
The negatives are it is pretty much dark for all running except for the last 20mins if I run to work.

But boy has it been cold, -C's with really cold winds. I've never pulled a neck gaitor up the longer a run went, normally it gets pulled down as you warm up!

I restarted my Instagram account and recently took a pictures while out on a run home from work.

And also a few from my weekend run down to the Redhook area.

Prospect Park looking good in the winter too:

I finally got back to visiting the dentist. Just another thing I had never got around to doing since moving here. Couple of things that were new to me was the flavoured cleaning stuff, I chose Strawberry, ha ha, and the offering of my music for the treatment. The dentist said patients could listen to music of their choice through Spotify on his iPhone. I guess it might help you relax slightly!

Up to now I'd been using my phone for the distance and pace while doing the longer runs but I just bought a new Garmin 220 watch which will also make it easier to upload practically all my runs to Strava so you can see my routes if you want.

Out of curiosity I wore it to soccer last night. I ended up running around 1 3/4 miles for the 40-odd minutes we play for. The more interesting, actually quite amazing fact was that my heart rate averaged 175!!

My heat map, ha ha.

As well as Bear Mountain in May, I will probably try and improve my half time with the Brooklyn Half a couple of weeks after that. I also just got in through the lottery for a trail race in upstate New York, the Leatherman Loop. A little worried as it's just a week before Bear Mountain, but it's only 6 miles and looks like it could be fun, river crossings, mud patches etc!

Thanksgiving Turkey Trot

Busy week. Monday night we went to see Interpol at Terminal 5.

So didn't get to bed until late. Tuesday I had my 2nd week of speed sessions, 8 x 400m which I actually kind of enjoyed although it was really warm inside so I definitely need to go back to storage and take some shorter shorts out.
We were really busy with customer orders at work due to the various sales going on at the moment too.

Thursday was the start of Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if it just used to be Thursday but now includes Black Friday shopping, Thanksgiving weekend and then your Cyber Monday online shopping day!

I entered what will be my last race of 2014, the Prospect Park Track Club's annual Turkey Trot. A 5M trot of a lap and a half of Prospect Park.
A good price, a nearby start but really more so I could eat all the food later without feeling quite so guilty.

Can you guess what the race give-away was?

Weather was a windless couple of degrees and the start was at 9am so I tried to time it and jogged over around 8.40am. The start was actually a little further over through the Center Drive road than I thought so I ended up arriving at 8.57am and as they were starting in the direction I was entering from I stepped over the start line, turned around and 2 minutes later we were off!

The roadway is narrow so the other people turning up late had to wait to get past so they could start by crossing the timing chip mat.

I had a fast start, 6.12 then remembered that it was 5M's and not the 5K that I'm used to doing in this park.

 

So 6.39 along the bottom and then 6.55 including up the hill.
Once I crested the hill at Grand Army, I rolled up my sleeves, settled in to track a couple of other runners and did a 6.24 mile.

 Then with a strong finish I did another 6.12 through the line for a total time of 32.24, 32nd out of a decent field of 2279 and 3rd in my age group. A decent training session too when you add in the jog there and the jog home.

That made 22 races for the year which when I thought about it sounded a lot when you think that's a race every 2-3 weeks.
I'm also well over running 400 more miles than I did last year although I've only done half the amount of biking too!

Onto the food! Late afternoon we went round to Heather's cousins. They had a couple of friends round and everyone brought a couple of dishes round. Thanksgiving food is like our Christmas dinner so I had WAY too much food.

There was a spectacular ham, mushroom gratin, potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, mac n cheese, chicken adobo & rice. Then obviously dessert consisted of a little of everything; ice cream, ginger cookie, sweet potato/pumpkin pie, lemon bar and of course some apple pie.
Haven't been so full for a long time.

I had to work Friday morning but luckily I am down in shipping so had minimal contact with the tonnes of customers that were swarming all over the store on Black Friday, I mean it's not like we sell tv's!

Cross Country in the sun

Yesterday I did the Pete McArdle 15K Cross Country up in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.

When I got up I looked out our rear window and found there were three parrots sitting in the trees!

As we practically back onto Greenwood cemetery I presumed they were the ones that nestle above the main entrance to the Cemetery. When we did the tour back in April we were told all about them.

Although it takes around 1 hour 45mins to get there the later start time (11.30am) and the nice quiet green surroundings definitely make it worth heading up there for races.
Plus it was only $15 and amazingly the weather was shorts and t-shirt weather with no need for arm warmers or gloves, even while hanging about waiting for the start.

NYRR

I have done very little running since the marathon and this is my rest period before next year, ha ha but despite still having that lingering cough I thought I would have decent strength to get through a very tough 9.3M course.

NYRR

One mini 4 min loop then 3 roughly 5K loops including the hills and descents in the back wooded section. Three times, aaggghh! 600ft of ascent and descent in total.

NYRR

Lots of stone steps I guess to stop ground erosion but it means you constantly check your stride and do a lot of slamming down if you let yourself fly down the descents. Consequently my shins today are really really sore and tight.

I ran well though. Did roughly 19.45, 20.17 and 20.05 for the loops averaging a mighty 197 heart rate for the race.

1.04.38 for 31st place (321 finishers) and 6th in my age group.

Track night!

So I happened upon a link to some speed sessions when browsing the race calender on the NYC runs website. Taken by a coach from the local Prospect Park Track Club they hold a 10-week programme INDOORS at the local Park Slope Armory for the PPTC members.

I've peeked inside the door once when I passed by during the summer and heard all the kids camps running about screaming etc. It looked a very impressive facility.

So on Sunday I paid the $25 to join PPTC and then $50 for the sessions and went along tonight. I thought it would be a good way to keep going during the winter, it has already dropped down to zero degrees here. Plus I wanted to run on the indoor track, ha ha.

It is closer than the park to us, like a 4minute jog and has a 200m track. Although the place was quite busy (it is also one of the YMCA facilities) they seem to have fairly decent (read, strict) rules on where you can go (these bleachers only) and the lanes you use (4 & 5 only). Clockwise for warm up & down and regular counter clockwise for the workout!

Will be interesting to see how hard the sessions get but tonight's was a 20min jog warmup, some light stretching then 4 x 800m with 2min recovery.

I was a bit slow with my pacing on the first one but did just over 3mins for the rest and was consistent on those. There was a decent amount of people there and I was actually closer to the front mini group of 4 guys on the last one.

We'll see how sore I am tomorrow?! I came home with a tiny blister on one toe!

Back on the track for a workout for the first time in nearly 25 years.

Marathon madness

NYC Marathon weekend was fun... almost as fun as running one.

There was a big group over from Aberdeen, Friends of Hazlehead, running the marathon and thanks to Mel and Myles Edwards they had a little presentation when they had their pasta dinner the night before with Katherine Switzer and her husband Roger Robinson.
We kindly accepted the invite and both of us turned up just in time to hear Katherine speak. It was good and also nice to see Mel and Myles along with hearing a load of Aberdonian voices!

I gave Myles and a couple of the supporters directions to Brooklyn and met them just after mile 5 on the Sunday. As well as me trying (and failing) to spot the few people I knew running we were looking out for their runners and managed to spot, cheer and speak to around 10 or 12 of their group as they passed by.

Having two Scottish flags on our little Scots corner also meant we attracted the numerous other Scots in the field, along with a couple of shouts from English runners and one Irish guy who shouted "close enough". We also traded shouts of support, which was basically shouting the name of the country on their top mainly with the French and Swedish.

Elite women

Elite men

Due to the nature of the wave starts around mile 5 you see increasing numbers of runners coming then the main lot where it is nearly impossible to spot people unless you've really planned it out beforehand then it slows down a little as it nears the back of that wave then quickly fills out across the road as the next wave catches up and so on.

4th Avenue is one long long road and it looks pretty cool both for spectators and runners as you look up and down the road.

 As well as the few in fancy dress there was one guy juggling three little balls and this guy:

The weather was so different to our DC one the week previous.
I heard the wind was pretty strong particularly over all the bridges and after 4 hours standing there I helped put Myles and the others back on the subway to Central Park then jog/walked the mile or so back home before spending 30mins in the shower regaining feeling in my fingers.

Then tried to spot us on the tv replay: