Today’s run: 3 miles  + 2 miles in the gym for 5 miles total. YT: 491.99.

NYC is truly an urban jungle today – steamy. Very steamy. So steamy that I ran 3 miles so slow I’m ashamed to put the count up.

Today’s run: 5.4 miles, 57:30 minutes.  YT: 486.99 miles. Back in NY. I ate oats for the second time before a run today, per the trainer. No noticeable difference in energy, until *maybe* the last mile – and then it’s hard to say because it’s the Chinatown mile and I do a lot of stopping and sprinting always. I’ll give it another few weeks and see.

Today’s run: 4.51 miles, 45:47 minutes. YT: 481.59. I had to run fast to make it to the beach house in time for our 11:30 meeting. I walked through the door at 11:26 giving me four minutes to wash face and drink water.

I need to get to the point where I feel like 25 miles of running per week is the SOLUTION to my overwhelming life, not  the problem.

So I got to thinking. There are 168 hours in a week. Now, I need to sleep 8 hours a night, or life gets very confusing. That leaves me with 112 hours a week to do with as I choose.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE HOURS.

Let’s even admit that at the very least, I also have 50 hours of work that MUST get done. I still have 62 hours to play with. And only 5 of them need to be running.

SIXTY-TWO HOURS OF WHICH ONLY 5 NEED TO BE RUNNING.

OK, I can do that.

Today’s run: 5.0 miles, 53 minutes. (+2.5 miles mileage from earlier in the week that I didn’t have time to blog….) YT: 477.08. Ah, to run on the beach! In Los Angeles for a working weekend; I had forgotten what it was like to run without immediately being in your own cloud of sweat and heat. Even though I got up at 4, and had been up for 16 hours running, 5 miles on the beach path came easy.

Back in Paradise for a Working Weekend

So…. another week of light mileage. About 17 miles. Ugh. For once my running wasn’t just derailed by my social life. I took a step into the (yuppie) void this week and signed up for … PERSONAL TRAINING. At the beginning of the training session, I told Sandy, “If you’re going to incapacitate me, let’s keep it to the upper body.” An hour later, they were wheeling me out in a chair.

OK – wasn’t that bad, but the next three days, I was EXTREMELY sore in the lower body after squats and lunges. Major disincentive to running – and actually causing me to wonder:

Is it safe to run when you’re hellaciously sore?

If someone could answer that, I’d appreciate it. Because it may stop me from bailing on my runs this week. I have training schedule both Tuesday AND Thursday – potential disaster.

BTW, trainer Sandy also said my running is unacceptably slow and I’m required to start eating oatmeal beforehand instead of the empty stomach. Hmph.

Today’s run: 4 miles, 46 minutes. Not much to report really. I ate 2 wasa crackers with feta (literally the only thing in the house) prior and felt like I could feel them kick in when I usually lose steam at 2-3. Go power feta.

Was it PMS? Eating pasta for dinner? Going to bed hungry?

Who knows, but only this “1000 mile” bizness got me out the door. I guess that was the point to all this foolishness …

Today’s run: 5.1 miles, 57 minutes. YT: 465.58. Humid beyond belief. A storm wind blew in toward the very end. The sky darkened but didn’t give me any rain. I saw a man doing Tai Chi in a way seemed to be a theatrical tribute to the day: slow and excrutiating,with a matching look on his face. Arms to held to the sky like he was shooting the sun.

I had trouble thinking about anything other than the humidity today, except for one stretch: During the Best of Bootie 2009 mashup of Ziggy Stardust and MGMT’s Kids.

These Bootie mixes are musical cocaine. Don’t tell anyone!!

Today’s run: 10:14 miles, 2:02 hours. From the Lower East Side to the East River, around the bend to Battery Park, and up to 68th St. We walked about a mile of this, otherwise would have had a pace of around 11min/per. Not a bad run, all in all. Very little energy on the last couple miles, but we finished! We weren’t as stand-out gross on the subway as expected because there were quite a few runners; there must’ve been a race in the Park today.

Beth and I post-run. Beth is a childhood friend in town for the weekend - and training for the Marine Corps Marathon!

Today’s run: 5.05 miles, 56:22 minutes. Yesterday’s run: 2.03 miles, 22:09 minutes. YT: 450.48. Beautiful morning of muted light and cool breeze.

I’m feeling a bit all over the place, having just finally eaten and had a reasonable (read: large) glass of wine after the schlep of a lifetime – 47 inches of solid oak table from 125th street to my apt, and then up 5 flights. This post is going to reflect that. Basically, I’m 2 parts happy, 1 part loopy, and 1 part exhausted. All blended together like mayonnaise.

Firstly notable – and I promise I’ll get to running topics shortly – my “man with a van” today was a former quant-associate on Wall Street. He used to get flown to Brazil to help the quants down there figure their shit out. But mostly he loved the energy of the floor. Now he’s helping me schlep my furniture. I didn’t ask a lot of questions.

He was extremely prompt and personable, but without the hunger of my Queens- and Brooklyn-based movers from a few weeks ago. He only carried the table top up the stairs, and was a little prissy about it. I carried three chairs, 4 legs, and the frame. Thank you very much.Then again, he did have a degree in nuclear engineering. Considering that, he was impressively blithe about his current entrepreneurial venture. Not bad looking, either. I liked the guy.

I digress. Running. While running today, I thought up a tip around adding mileage, something that’s worked for me. If you run a regular route, and want to add a leg, add it on the front end, not the back. That way you get the “new” terrain out of the way right away, and afterwards, your body/mind feels like it’s on that “same old route.” I get a psychological boost out of it.

In other health news, I have done something unheralded in my “athletic” career: Signed up for personal training, along with a co-worker, at the gym across the street. Need to put some tone back in the parts of my body that don’t carry the rest of my body around, strengthen my core, and do something with my back to improve my posture. Voila, personal training. My coworker and I plotted around some high-level haggling, but ultimately we ended up with some personal tanning sessions and protein shakes that we don’t really need. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe I’ll be posting pictures of myself oiled up, veiny, and orange in a few weeks. But it seems unlikely.

One more piece of excitement: I WILL be getting my weekly mileage this week, thanks to a surprise call from my childhood friend BETH who is town for the weekend. She’s training for a marathon and invited me to be the lucky tagger-on for her 10-miler tomorrow.  I think we’re going to start on the East River, run around the South Bend to Battery Park, then ALL THE WAY up the Westside Highway to 72nd.

Report to come…

Today’s run: 3.75 miles, 51.01. Saturday’s run: 1.75miles, 20min. Friday’s run: 3.79 miles, 38:32 minutes. YT: 443.4. Today’s was a treadmill run at the Hollywood Crunch. I did intervals, from sprinting all the way down to walking. It’s been a nonstop weekend of work meetings and catch ups with LA friends. Not much for sleep.  

Love These Chairs @ the Standard

 I chose hanging with friends over quality runs this weekend, a working weekend in LA. It’s just the way I’m wired.  

I bought myself a City of Angels mug to take back to NY. Sweet, sweet Los Angeles. It’s been fun staying in Hollywood, experiencing LA in a new way — shuttling between a hotel on the Sunset Strip and my boss’ place up the hill.  

So glad I got a run in today after skipping yesterday and having a very light run Saturday. Still on track despite the whirlwind weekend.