The Longest Run

<a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ny/new-york/126488386037">NYRR Queens Half-Marathon 2008 (approximate)</a><br/><a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/ny/new-york">Find more Runs in New York, New York</a> If you click through to the full screen view on the map above (the approximate route for next weekend's Queens Half-Marathon) and switch to Satellite View, you can see Target (quite clearly) from outer space. Wacky. I'll be running this race next weekend with my good friend Jordi , who is coming up to NYC with some of his family for the race and a Yankees game.

Well, it turns out that last weekend's race was in fact the slowest of the 4 half-marathons I've run this year. While I was disappointed in my finishing time I'm really glad I ran the race. Running down Seventh Avenue from Central Park to 42nd Street - with the entire avenue blocked off on both sides and relatively full of spectators - was the coolest running moment I've ever had. Pictured below, courtesy of NYRR, is a view looking up Seventh; not as dramatic as the view I had looking south to Times Square and beyond, but it gives you a sense of what it was like. There was a brief period of time Sunday morning where I wondered if (hoped that?!?) the race would be cancelled due to some pretty impressive thunderstorms in the area. By the time I left our apartment at 6:15 the rain had slowed to a drizzle and the big thunder and lightning had moved out. After the storms departed we were left with....hot and humid. The NYRR stats page on the race says 70 degrees and 90% humi...

Finished today's race in 2:02:47 (unofficial time). Not my fastest time and not my slowest time among the 4 halfs I've run this year. Full report to come later.

Had a nice run this morning after thinking I wouldn't run at all. I did a double yesterday - a fast 7-mile run in the morning followed by an evening run. I guess evening run is a bit of a misnomer since it was actually the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, where I joined 20,000 or so fellow New Yorkers in a 3.5 mile journey through Central Park. With all the miles logged yesterday followed by a late dinner out with a friend, I figured I would take this morning off. That said, since Thursday is typically a training day and since it was another beautiful morning with temps in the high 50's, I figured running with tired legs would ultimately be good for me. I returned to the Reservoir in the park for the first time in a while and did two loops - one fast and one slow. The race last night was quite an experience. I'd not run in the Corporate Challenge for many years, and for the first 1.5 miles last night, I was pretty sure I'd never run in one again. Having grown accusto...

I took the kids to school today so Mrs. Longest Run could get some stuff done at home. As I was leaving school I met up with our friends Steve and Ellen. Steve offered to buy me an iced coffee at a shop around the corner from school which sounded great as it was already hot and humid. When we arrived at the coffee shop we found another friend - Jordi - sitting outside in a shady breezeway. We joined him and then a few minutes later were joined by Bill and Michelle. It was fantastic to have a bit of unexpected time with friends with no distractions (i.e. kids) - a great way to start the day.

I ran 13.25 miles this morning - including two full loops of Central Park. It was a real slog given the temperature and the humidity, but I was careful and took it easy; the run took 2 hours, 7 minutes, which works out to 9:36 per mile. The best news is that I've now done 35.4 miles for the week - a new peak - and that I've logged some good miles in the kind of uncomfortable conditions which lie ahead.

I set out yesterday morning at 5:15AM in the dark and in a steady downpour to run in the NYRR 50th Anniversary Run - a 5 mile race in Central Park. I've been remarkably blessed this year in that I've not had to run in the rain or cancel workouts due to weather, but that certainly wasn't the case yesterday. As a result of the weather a race that would otherwise have had 5,000 runners had fewer than 2,000, but still a large number given the time and the conditions. I jogged down to the start of the race in front of Tavern on The Green, timing things so I'd end up at the start line with as little time as possible before the race got under way. After spending about 5 minutes huddled under some tall trees with fellow runners, I moved over to my starting corral for the pre-race announcements. The rain tapered down to light sprinkles as we got underway, which was obviously a big relief. There was a bit - and I emphasize a bit, not a lot - of a festive air given that the run w...

More details to follow, but I'm just back from this morning's NYRR 50th Anniversary Run - a 5 mile race in Central Park. In spite of ugly conditions (steady rain), I managed to finish in 38:16 - a pace of 7:39 per mile.

Following Sunday's overly ambitious outing , I wasn't sure I wanted to run at all on Monday. Inspired by the beautiful weather, I decided to run along the Hudson River, which is something I'd never done since moving to New York City in 1997. We've had friends tell us it's really fun to do a family bike ride all the way up to the George Washington Bridge, so I thought it would be cool to run all the way up to the bridge. Not knowing how far it is from our apartment up to the bridge, I did a quick check of a map on MapMyRun ; notice I said quick check. It looked to be about 3 miles up to the bridge, making the round trip around 6, and I figured with the cool weather and an easy pace it would be no problem. Since I know it's 20 blocks to a mile in Manhattan, that distance seemed a little light but not out of the question. Brimming with confidence, I set out close to 7AM and took my camera with me; the kids have always loved the GWB (it's a really beautiful bri...

From the New York Road Runners Web Site: Hello, Andrew! Congratulations! You're in for the experience of a lifetime, the 2008 NYC HALF Marathon Presented by Nike! We are thrilled that you will be joining us on Sunday, 7:30:00 AM. Be sure to bookmark our site www.ingnycmarthon.org and visit it often for the latest news. Good luck with your training. The race is July 27 and features a great course. Here's the description: The course will begin on Central Park's East Drive (near 85th Street) and make a complete, clockwise loop around the park. Runners will then continue to the south end of the park and exit onto Seventh Avenue, heading south to Times Square. A right turn onto 42nd Street will take runners to 12th Avenue (West Street), where, after a left turn, the race continues along the Hudson River waterfront to Lower Manhattan. The finish is on West Street near Rector Street and Battery Park.

I've never actually tried to figure out how many runner/bloggers there are running around NYC these days - it's probably quite a few. I don't remember where I first came across Running Down a Dream , but I've enjoyed it. Today's post on the Wall Street race I ran yesterday provides a great overview of the experience. Unfortunately (?) I missed out on the Wii Fit socks, but courtesy of Mrs. Longest Run, now own the real thing as of this morning.

I ran this evening in the AHA Start! Wall Street Run, a 3 mile run through lower Manhattan. After watching it rain most of the day and expecting to be wet and cold for the race, we were blessed with cool temperatures and overcast skies with just a few sprinkles. The race was tricky given the sheer number of people (4,300 entrants), narrow streets (here's the course map) , and big puddles. Though the course was pretty cool, I didn't have a chance to really look up until the third mile. At that point I had a nice view of clearing skies and the Statue of Liberty - not so bad. My splits were so strange I wasn't convinced the course was really the advertised 3 miles. According to my watch, I ran the first mile in 7:42, the second in 8:12, and the last mile in 6:48 even though I felt that was the slowest mile. The official results: 3 miles 22:36 minutes 7:32 per mile overall place: 885 (out of 4,301) gender place: 764 (out of 2,563) age place: 122 (out of 507) To put things in pe...

I learned a lesson this morning: don't ever look at the New York Road Runners web site before heading out for a run - it's potentially demotivating. Checking the site this morning, I noticed that the date for the Staten Island Half-marathon has been moved....to October 12th. For those of you who have been following regularly, you know that October 12th is the day of the Chicago Marathon (now only 148 days and 19 hours away). Now, I've noticed that the dates for some of the NYRR races can move around a lot, so there's a chance that the race date will move again, but it's a bummer to think I might be denied in my quest for the Grand Prix when I've already completed 3 of 5 races. That's the bad news. The good news is that the weekend the race was originally scheduled to take place - September 13/14 - now has a NYRR marathon training run on the schedule; that will likely give me a chance to do one of my extra-long marathon preparation runs (20 miles +) in Centr...

Lots of details I want to share with you about the run yesterday. Before I do that, though, I want to say thank you to the many readers who reached out over the past few days with well wishes and positive thoughts; your support meant (and means) a lot to me. As I struggling through the latter part of the race I thought a lot about the goals I'd set and shared with all of you; that gave me extra motivation to keep up the pace.... As challenging as I found the run, it was an incredibly satisfying experience and a really fun day. Here's how it unfolded: I got on a yellow school bus in Manhattan at about 6:20. By 7AM we were at the boardwalk on Coney Island, so I had two hours to burn before the race started. I spent the first hour walking down the boardwalk (this was my first time there) - taking pictures and checking things out. At about 8:20 I checked my bag and started to get ready for the race - stretching, jogging to warm up, 'eating' my PowerBar chocolate gel for bre...

Tomorrow is the big day! I take a bus (at 6:30) from the East side of Manhattan out to Coney Island. Not sure exactly what time we arrive but I expect to do some standing around before the race starts at 9AM. The training work is done and all that's left is sweating the details (I was going to say managing the details, but I suppose one can't really manage the weather....). What kind of weather will we have? The AccuWeather forecast shows rain between 9AM and 10AM; the Weather Channel says cloudy with 20% chance of rain. I'm hoping the worst case is scattered showers. Running in the rain can be fun, but not for two hours, not when it's 50 degrees, and not when you have to wait around for a race to start. The uncertainty in the weather means uncertainty on what to wear. Long-sleeved or short-sleeved t-shirt? Tights or no tights? Hat or no hat? I've got my bib/number and assigned corral - the 7-8 minute/mile group. It looks like my corral is based on the time I ran th...

Enjoyed a fine sushi dinner tonight with the daughters.

My experience of the past several weeks is that travel is really bad for a training program. I was in a great groove up to mid-March, but travel since then to Houston, Bermuda, and Stockholm really knocked me back a bit in spite of one or two good runs since then. The good news is I've only got one more trip coming up - Munich for two days next week - and then things look pretty clear. One way I've been out of a groove is that my knees have been bothering me a lot; I've also felt dead-legged. I'm not sure if that's a function of an irregular training schedule, overtraining (there was that 15 mile run in Houston....), bad eating (way too many buffet meals), old age, or maybe all of the above. Over the past week I've treid to adjust by backing off the miles and the pace just a bit and by doing a lot more stretching (mostly by using a roller that looks like this ); it's a great tool for stretching out your leg muscles. The good news is that today's run was...

As I ramp up the weekly mileage in training for the Brooklyn half-marathon (which takes place exactly 7 weeks from tomorrow), I've been concerned about whether I'd end up with sore knees or some other malady. There was a great article in the New York Times Play Magazine last week (link here ) about the phenomenon of overtraining. As my training has been going really well and I've gotten into a good groove, I do feel a bit of a tendency to want to do more - whether that's running longer or running faster. I'm happy to have read the article now as I think it's a great reminder that there's such a thing as overtraining. Registration opened this week for the NYRR/Nike Half-Marathon and I've entered the lottery. I won't know until late May or early June whether I've got a spot. I'm not completely sure I want to run the race - it would make 6 half-marathons this year and the race is in July (hot hot hot!). On the other hand, it would be fun to use ...