Today’s run: 4.32 miles, 46:11 minutes. Also .78 on treadmill at the gym. YT: 544.97 miles.
Feeling unusually reflective this past couple of days. Actually, I’m generally reflective. So imagine the “Bill” theme from True Blood, and you’re with me. Well, maybe not quite so solemn. In fact, sometimes downright silly. But definitely marinating in summer’s rituals – weddings, late nights, transitions and decisions.
This run was average, given that lately I’ve been trying to push more for faster runs. 10:40 pace? Meh. The gym was really great though – tons of stability and core training, along with legs. The stability stuff is so much more fun than stupid weights. Everyone, get thee to a Bosu ball. You’ll love it.
Thirteen miles so far this week. Planning a 7 or 8 miler tomorrow to break into the double digits. In case you’re wondering, situation 1000 miles is looking grim. But I’m going to keep plugging on – better it be my 924 mile year than my 544.97 mile year.
I plan to go down running.
Today’s run: 4.5 miles, 47:59. YT: 425.04. I ran down the main drag in Bethany Beach amidst 4th of July furor. Lots of shade, miraculously, but I was the kind of slow that you can only achieve by spending all day the day before drinking in the beach.
Running on the main drag in Bethany, you’re in a pretty little lane for bikers and runners – that travels alongside the main highway. It’s not dangerous, to be sure, but I like to stay by the outside of the lane when having to pass by oncoming running traffic, as far from the cars as possible. As fellow runners approached, I noticed that most men kindly took the inside when crossing my path – dutifully risking life and limb (but not really) to preserve their gentlemanly status.
Except for one guy. I saw him coming. We stared each other down, locked in a game of chicken which I knew pretty immediately that I was going to lose. His eyes said, “My gait is my honor.” Truth be told, he was running pretty fast.
So, I let him go. He may win his races, but he’s not going to win any charm awards.
Happy fourth all! Firework photos TK tomorrow.
Today’s run: 4.75 miles, 51:48 minutes. YT: 420.54. I didn’t see any elderly Chinese men running backwards today. Maybe yesterday I was hallucinating.
Today is July 2, and so we are officially in the second half of the Thousand Mile Year. I’m noticing that having a year-long project has an impact on your perception of things. It’s kind of like a tattoo: It anchors you to this person you were six months ago who said, “I think I should do this.” And I can tell you, that person who sat in Cayucos, California, whipping together this blog in the final days of 2009, never thought that six months later, she’d be sitting in her 5th floor walk up on the island of Manhattan pecking out this post on a sunny July day after a cheerful run through Chinatown. How did this happen?!
Have you noticed that I’m 80 miles behind? Yep: I’m going to have to increase my average weekly mileage to 25 miles a week. Doable – but easy to screw up. It means that the long run can never be tomorrow. It’s always got to be today. The “power month” can’t be next month. It needs to be this month.
While I don’t see another move coming – and I’m still surprised at how much this one turned me over and squeezed me out – I’m sure there will be other challenges before the year is up. In particular, snow and sleet and wind and rain, probably not in that order.
Let’s see what we can do.
Today’s run: 6.12 miles, 1:04:07 minutes. Great run today, probably because I told Elodie beforehand that it would be so. I saw three Chinese men running backward today. I don’t know if it’s a new fad, or if I just never noticed it before.
At long last, the story of me, the rats, and Umberto, the newly reigning Lower East Side rat killer.
Rite of the Rat
I awoke to noises under the sink. Loud, throttling noises, like raccoons in the garbage. Then, there he was, next to the stove. Eight inches of cruddy, matted fur; intelligent black eyes. He peered up at me, bewildered and irritated. Yeah, I read him loud and clear:
“Who the hell are you?”
We stared at each other. I stamped my bare feet and yelled. He stared back.
Today’s run: 4.01 miles, 45:02. YT: 402.57. The morning streets of Chelsea are ruled by runners and delivery men. “Good morning track star!” one of the latter greeted me with just as I took off.
Getting back into the groove. Still couch surfing, though I’ve upgraded to sharing a bed at a friend’s. (Thank you thank you!) And on Sunday, I’ll move into a new apartment, hurrah!
Today’s run started at Union Square Park, took me up 17th St. to the waterfront at Chelsea Piers, along the Westside Highway running path, then back down with a return on 16th.
My geographical perspective is still that of a Los Angelino. In other words, I’m slow to comprehend how small this island is. I was shocked when I hit the waterfront just a mile into my run. Shocked and pleased.
Today’s run: 5.01 miles, 55:44. YT: 391.61. Decided to do a nice and easy 5-miler. The East River was steamy and beautiful today – greener than I remember, with blooming trees that smelled like honeysuckle.
Guys: I moved to New York! I feel the need to take a little blog moment to celebrate that. Interspersed with (temporary) goodbyes, in two weeks I sold upwards of 20 furniture/household items and a car, held a yard sale, boxed, lugged and shipped 16 boxes, and ran 18 miles – while working full time.
I do feel more *here* now that there is only here – just my sublet. It’s a strange, light feeling.
There were some surprises the awaiting me here. Among them: Ernie and Martha’s two sills, instead of being on boarded up windows, are now open spaces exposing the gut renovation that’s going on next door. (I wonder if the old lady really did live there, and her falling episode was the beginning of her moving out process.) So now I have new workmen friends doing their thing about 4 feet away from where I sleep and where I dress. And I don’t have blinds. Hello workmen friends! I’ll get a better pic next time. Incidentally, Ernie and Martha were on the sill this morning before the workmen showed up, but it’s hard to say what this development means for their own construction (nest).
Now that the moving’s done, it’s time to rack up some serious mileage in the next weeks. If I were on track, I’d be at 500 miles by the close of June. That’s not going to happen, but let’s see how close I can get.
Today’s run: 7.06, 1:15:05. Yay – awesome awesome run!! My training called for 7 miles easy, but I took advantage of my usual energy peak at miles 4 and 5 to run them race pace, and I definitely finished strong at race pace as well, with good attention to form. So enjoyed this run – rich with mental wordsmithing.
Driving on Culver toward the beach, everything changes after the stretch of warehouses when you cross Lincoln. A two-lane road cuts through the tall grasses of the Ballona Creek Wetlands. Today, in middle June, the grass is rippled with patches that are tawny with thirst and dotted by small yellow buds.
Since I got back in LA, I’ve been saying that it has been like a return to the womb, a respite from unrelentingly unfamiliar stimuli in New York. Today no metaphor seems more apt as I drive into the amniotic soup of salty, wet ocean air. I truly feel like it’s feeding me. There’s nowhere I feel more relaxed than at the beach – except maybe in the ocean itself. It’s the place where I feel comfortable with living and breathing, and comfortable with not breathing too. Like I could so easily, painlessly be reabsorbed into what made me. I got it when Jeremy Blake waded into the ocean at Rockaway and never came out. Not the desire to self-destruct, but the chosen method.
It’s so easy here in Los Angeles to settle into the cool breeze of an uninterrupted season. That’s probably why so many people wash out. The status quo, even for those who show up in their Toyota Tercels with a suitcase and never trade up, is pretty damn amazing.
Today’s run: 4.8 miles, 53:54 minutes. 4 m easy plus three gentle pickups.
A beautiful three bridge run – Williamsburg Bridge to the Brooklyn Bridge (with Manhattan in between). I was full of Walt Whitman-style exuberance and a sense of integration with everything around me.
Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling! – Walt
Today’s run: 4.6 miles, 50:47 minutes. YT: 275.3. 2 miles easy, 4 x 1 min aerobic intervals, 2 miles easy.
I like the industrial harbor I face when running South(ish?) along the East River. It’s old and strong and doesn’t pretend at anything. I dreamed last night of a woman whose entire body – minus hair, eyes, nostrils, and mouth – was covered with a thin film of hosiery. I wondered what she could be hiding underneath.
