For Whom the Dogs Bark

No running today.  Heading to NYC on vacation with the family in the morning, trying to decide whether to run while I am there.  I probably will, just because of Central Park, but not very much.  I think I will follow the traditional advice and take a week off for the most part.  In the past I have gotten away with starting back at it pretty quickly,.  I came out of this marathon in good shape but very sore and I am guessing things could go south in a hurry if I start back too quickly.  Somebody's blog today says the UVM course has 1000' of elevation gain in it.  The course profile doesn't hint at that, but it explains a lot about how things went on Saturday -- I felt OK about my time before I knew that, and I am even more OK with it now.  The course is apparently tougher than Ogden, which absolutely killed me a year ago.  I almost registered for ING Hartford today.  It is the Saturday after St. George (which I missed), but still timed well to allow Boston registration before it fills up, assuming I qualify.  Plus it is my kind of race, flat and sea level.  Doesn't look like it is filling up just yet so I will wait a little bit but I think that is going to be my fall race.

Beautiful morning today in NYC, left the hotel at about 6:30 and ran up to Central Park, around inside (just gorgeous) and back in about 80 minutes.  I didn't have a working Garmin until 20-25 minutes in, so not sure of the exact distance, but I was doing mid to low 9s once I started to get a reading, so I am calling it 8 miles.  I ran in flats, average heart rate about 150.  First miles since the marathon.  I had a little bit of hip pain to start my new training cycle, I think it might have resulted from walking so much yesterday.  We must have walked 5 miles and I am not used to that.  Believe it or not, it is a different kind of fitness than running.  None of my old aches and pains, though, it appears that my ankle/knee/groin issues are ancient history.

I can't believe I lived here for three years and never ran in Central Park.  Maybe because I wasn't a runner then?   Made me think of a law school classmate who was spotted frequently running in Riverside Park while smoking a cigarette and carrying a Miller Lite for hydration.  He was one of the higher performers in our class, so I'm sure he had a point, just that none of us knew what it was.  I'm guessing he would claim he was substituting nicotine for caffeine and alcohol for ibuprofen.  There is a runner out there for every theory.

There is a beautiful reservoir at the top of the park that has a crushed granite jogging path around it.  It must have rained last night because the path was covered with puddles to the point you couldn't get through without tiptoe-ing, which all the locals were doing.  But not me.  I trucked right through and splashed as many old ladies, poodles and investment bankers as I could find.  My daughter was embarrassed when I bragged about it, which only made me even happier about this run.

65F, 74% humidity, wind S 5 mph.  Gorgeous morning again in NYC, going home this afternoon.  The Garmin wouldn't pull in a satellite reading.  It asked me if I was inside and I accidentally pushed yes, whereupon it gave up.  But I ran 1:27:47 at low heart rate, which is around 11 minutes per mile in Houston, so I am calling it 8 miles again, flat shoes.  A little bit of a thorn in paradise, my left hip is still hurting, but only when I run, about level 4 I would say, maybe a little less.  I think it is related to all the hills I have been running lately, it didn't show up until my first recovery run after the marathon.  Not sure if it will amount to anything, probably not.

Last night we had some pretty good Thai food and I ordered it hot.  So this morning I started out toward Central Park and about 45 minutes in I found myself earnestly searching for facilities.  When I finally found them they were padlocked shut.  Not sure why they bother to have them, but there are many mysteries when it comes to New York City government.  Now they have an environmental disaster on their hands and I have crossed one carbo loading alternative off my list.

We have had a good time here in the big city, capped it off with a harbor cruise last night.  Here are some photos my youngest daughter took.  They are good quality for a cell phone, but as a computer klutz I can't get all the pixels migrated over to the blog, but you get the idea I think.

Some cliches never get old.  Liberty and justice for all, right in front of the World Trade Center site.  For many years, 50,000 people per day came through nearby Ellis Island, screening success rate 98%.  A group of French folks were just in front of us, happily clicking away in a very un-Frenchlike manner, because of course this statue was a gift from them.

A new building is heading to the sky just to the north of the World Trade Center site, taller than the old.  For now it is about 30 stories tall and behind the black building just over the woman's head.  The site itself will be turned into a memorial.  Scheduled completion in 2-1/2 years.

Happy weekend to all.