Scotland Run 10K PR

Today's 10K New York Roadrunners Scotland Run was my third and last late winter running race this year. The course practically mimicked the New York Triathlon run course, with a clockwise run of the hilly Central Park loop. Running this direction, it almost seems as if there are more downhills than ups, with the biggest uphill coming exactly at the half way mark.


With cold, but otherwise perfect conditions, this waas a much better raceday then just three weeks ago. I opted to shed the winter clothes and to run in shorts, something that seemingly lifted my spirits. With almost 7000 runners in the race, the first mile was terribly crowded, which provided me with protection against going out too fast. Ultimately I was feeling quite good during the whole race, finishing with a personal record of 45.20 and a 7.18/mile pace. Not great, but a nice start of spring season.

A bit unfocused, often cold and still a bit too heavy!

I've kinda been all over the place the last few weeks. Work is going well, but obviously has plenty of time" demands, the sale of our current home and purchase of our new place has been on top of my mind a lot, and our little one recently turned two and is just a blast to spend lots of time with. Though I try to ramp up my training just a bit now, I am still very much in a cross-training, "let's not yet get too serious" mood.

Looking at a graph of my last three months of training, it is a nice, almost even split between running, swimming and cross-training (strength and pilates mainly) at a low level of less than four hours a week on average. It continues to be rather cold so far here in New York, thus my bike continues to rest comfortably in the basement (yeah, I am a wimp when it comes to riding in the cold). Both training volume and intensity certainly seem fairly low, but overall I feel good coming out of the winter. I am still carrying about 10lbs too much of body weight, typical and, while annoying, not too much of a concern for me.

With just over two months left until my first Olympic distance race this season, it is time now to warm up and thus ramp up the volume and intensity a bit.

Huffing and Puffing 15K Colon Cancer Challenge

I have no idea why I thought that today's 15K Colon Cancer Challenge in Central Park would be a good race for me. My running training has been sketchy, the whole week I had been battling sinus issues, and it was cold and windy when I woke up this morning. After the Cherry Tree 10 mile race just a couple of weeks ago in Prospect Park, this was the second late winter race for me. This time I wanted to improve over my decent performance last time out and come in at a 7.30 minute pace. For whatever reason, today, this proved utterly impossible. With temperatures below freezing and gusty winds, I never really hit my stride this morning. The first four miles I was able to stay on target, but then completely fell apart. Every minor hill proved a challenge and the last two mile of the race I had runners of all shapes and sizes just whizzing past me. At the end, with a time of 1.13.12 I barely stayed under 8 minutes a mile and felt completely winded. Time that this winter comes to an end now and a nice Spring season will allow me to get into a a more consistent training routine.

A week of travel and travel back in time

This whole week I have mostly been on the road. First short dashes to Tampa and Houston, then a day at home in New York, and later in the week off to Los Angeles for two days. While New York was in a deep freeze with temperatures on the 20's, those other places were obviously quite a bit warmer; my system did not take those temperature changes without some stress. So, I downed some airborne and tried to stay halfway fit.

With that schedule I did not stress much about training, but was able to fit in some low key workouts late in the week. Yesterday, on a foggy day in Southern California, I just loved running 5 miles along the strand in Hermosa Beach/Manhattan Beach, our former home. Especially those two miles in the sand, only feet from the braking surf, were just amaing as always. And today, before getting ready to fly back, I went back in time and swam a good half hour at the 24hour fitness outdoor pool in West Hollywood. The same pool that I practically learned how to swim during my early morning workouts before heading to work after spending the night at Roy's place in Hollywood.