Last night I watched the full moon (Hunter’s moon) waiting for this eclipse that I read about online.
total non-eclipse of the heart
Never saw the eclipse so I moved on to channel surfing with my best furrpal to relax and end a busy week.
Furrpal Friday
The other day I noticed one of my tires was really low and upon further inspection I noticed this:
that doesn’t belong
So this morning, instead of sleeping in, I went to get the tire fixed. Only cost $21 and took about 45 minutes. Then I decided I might as well get the Jeep washed. It was pretty dirty. Aside from the exterior berries, leaves, bird poo and general grime, the inside was filled with remnants from last week’s race. I had a heat sheet, the paper plate from my slice of post-race pizza, empty water bottles and tons of leaves that crept into the car as well.
looking good for an 11 year old vehicle
Only one little casualty. In my haste, I forgot to remove my beloved car magnets. I had a casualty…
Gonna miss her!
I came home, had a li’l breakfast and then at exactly 10:55am (because now I’m obsessed with starting as many of my remaining training runs at the time I’ll be starting the NYCM) I set out for a 10 miler. I opted to wear the shirt I plan on wearing for NYCM as well.
Team Stupid Cancer
I let charging my iPod slip through the cracks, so I went with no music. It was a GREAT 10 miles. I started slow and picked up the pace for the second half. I felt in total control of my breath and at times running felt effortless. (who am I and where’d Sally go?)
negative splits!
After my run I took the pup to his our favorite place to enjoy the fresh air and the lovely October colors…
Today has been a great day. I hope you are all enjoying it too. Catch ya later!
Time. I’m obsessed with time. I fixate on seconds, minutes, hours….I’m constantly doing math in my head.
Sally’s head: “If we don’t hit traffic I could be home by 5:43 tonight….that’ll give me 37 minutes before the sun sets”….or “I’ll set the alarm for 4:07am….walk the dog, at 4:12, jump in the shower at 4:49 and eat something at 5:15. Then hit the road 5:30am to meet friends at 6:00am”
Then there’s the time fixation while running….a.k.a. “my Garmin time”. I’m obsessed with that too. It also gets my brain all mathematical…
Sally’s head: “OOOH 11:17 pace. If I can maintain this I’ll PR”….”11:46 pace? WTF? my watch is broke. I FEEL like I’m going faster than that!”….
I’m realizing as I get older that time obsession is BAD. But it’s so hard to un-obsess….I want to make a conscious effort to change this. I want to ease up the scheduling of my life and let it flow a little more naturally. And with this effort I want to try and limit the amount I try to cram in each day. The ridiculous “to-do” lists need to get shorter. I was reading a post on Facebook that my friend’s brother wrote. Their dad passed away suddenly a few months ago. He was talking about the impending “firsts” of holidays without their dad. I commented how I remembered when my husband passed away I went through similar anxiety and dread for those “firsts”. But having been through them (and then some—it’s been 14 years) the anticipation of those “firsts” were more brutal than the actual holiday itself. If I could go back, I would have spent the time embracing my “firsts” instead of eating up my precious moments with negative anticipation.
Time is precious. And that is why I try and make good use of every moment. But I’m not enjoying each moment if I’m so fixated on the next moment. I need to try to be more like my dog. He knows how to live in the moment!
OK, now that I’ve got all my deep thoughts out of the way, on to some other stuff. I ran today for the first time since my big 20 miler on Sunday. Overall felt good. Some residual tightness in my hamstring but nothing to crazy. I started my run at 10:55am because I want my body to start getting used to this late start over the next 17 days when I run the NYC Marathon in wave 4 that starts at that time. I’m a GENIUS!
And since I started my run so late I spent all morning with the love of my life.
We walked for about 2 miles through some trails in the woods where we saw a buck and a doe. (no pictures because I didn’t want to scare them. They are such sweet timid creatures). Then I took him to a baseball field and let him of the leash and we ran around like lunatics! AHH speed drills in disguise. So much fun!
Well I better go get some work done. I’ve got about 120 precious freelance work moments ahead of me =)
Question: Does anyone else have similar fixations with time?
P.S.: here are a few pics from Sunday’s Staten Island Half Marathon…
It started out just like yesterday. It was a bit like Groundhog’s Day…
doodle giving a little attitude for being woken up so early and pre-race coffee requirement being met
I arrived at the Staten Island Half Marathon race day packet pickup at 6:30am Parked my car and headed over to the start village area. It was DARK and they were still setting up. These banners eventually got hung…
banners waiting to be hung
Used the flash on my phone to illuminate the “S” box so that the volunteer could locate my bib…
“S” is for Sweat Out the Small Stuff =)
and then picked up my race tee (I ended up getting 2 on accident….they were stuck together….SCORE!). I made a quick pitstop back to my car to drop the race tees and pin my race number on my pants, grab a bottle of water and then I started out on my pre race miles…
Three miles in I took a path into a park that has a great view of the Verrazano Bridge. (yes I know! I’m obsessed with my overpriced-toll-suspension-bridge. It’s unhealthy.)
First time I ever used the Kelvin filter with Instagram….
I followed the same route back to my car and managed to get about 6 1/2 pre-race miles. My goal today was to try and keep a pace in the 11 to 11:30 minute mile. I stayed at 11:15 for those pre-race miles. Things were right on target. Met up briefly with my running peeps before we all split up to head to our appropriate corrals.
love these peeps
I won’t go into boring detail about every mile of the race. It went smooth and I kept my 11:15 pace for the entire half. At one point the leading men were running past us in the opposite direction. I quickly pulled out my camera to snap pics. The 1st place dude was so fast that I didn’t get his pic. But I got a great shot of the 2nd place dude (I looked up his results and he did indeed hold the 2nd place spot…
As I was entering the final chute to the finish I thought it would be kinda cool to video it. I’ve never done that before. The footage is quite shakey but I was excited that they annouced my name as I finished. And unbeknownst to me my running peeps were on the sidelines and Lisa took a photo of me. When I watched the video I saw that I actually videotaped her! We’re just meant to be.
Here’s the pic she took of me…
And here’s a still shot from the video where you can see her taking the pic…
and here’s the non-award-winning video…
20 miles done! And now it’s TAPER TIME!
After I finished I jogged back to the parking lot and did a few laps until I hit the 20 mile mark and then went back to my car (running peeps hopped on the Staten Island Ferry to head back to Manhattan) and stretched for a bit. I knew I’d have a good 40 minutes before the roads would be reopened and all of a sudden I realized I was STARVING! 20 miles and I had probably only eaten about 500 calories…I scraped up a few bucks in my car and went into the ferry terminal to get a nice hot slice of pizza! So good!
YUM!
Then kicked back and patiently waited….
stretching
Finally they let us out and I headed home. My final half time was 2:27 and my final 20 mile time was 3:45 giving me an average pace of 11:15! My A) goal for the NYC Marathon is 5:15 which is a 12 minute pace. I think I’m right on target (which means I probably just jinxed myself).
I want to give a shout out to Mike who set a shiny new half marathon PR at 1:46! WORD! I was so grateful to him yesterday for pacing me to a 10K PR that this made me happy.
I bought a new pair of earbuds yesterday at Walgreens and decided to give them a test today so I’ll know if they will work for the NYC Marathon.
iHome FIT ear buds get a big thumbs up
They get my seal of approval. I didn’t use the extra hook pieces that go behind the year but they never fell out. The only issue is they are so snug that people were asking me questions and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I’m going to make sure not to wear both at NYC Marathon. Keeping one ear free should allow me to hear better.
All in all it was a great running weekend. Unfortunately not much else was accomplished. Well I did take the doodle on a walk with his Dogue friends (and my human friend)
Duncan and Athena and Zeus A.K.A. the Dogues
and last night I made a quick visit to another friends house where her boxer Chance and the doodle got to have a riveting play date…
And I also treated myself to a plate of my favorite cookies…
I’ll let you in on a secret. I cried both yesterday and today. Just a brief moment each morning while driving to my race destination where I just got all fuh-klempt. There’s something about the journey of training for marathons that really opens up the emotions. I become overly grateful for everything. So now I’m officially beginning my taper period that will last 3 weeks until marathon day. I’ll try and focus everything that has taken a back seat the last few months. which is basically EVERYTHING!
Today was the Rock ‘n’ Roll Brooklyn 10K in Prospect Park. The day started early. Alarm went off before 5am and I was out the door at 6am. Duncan isn’t so fond of my weekend races that require alarm clocks to go off at 5am when we should be sleeping in. I strum violins for him. Such a tough life he has.
pre race coffee requirement met…
I traveled over my beloved Verrazano Bridge but since the sun hadn’t risen I got this picture:
pre-dawn Verrazano Bridge
Pretty still but nothing compared to this one from August:
sunrise porn
I scooped up my co-mustache-packet pickup-pal Lisa and then we headed to the start corrals where we met up with most of our group
the packet pickup mustache girls
starting group plus one mustache boy and minus two mustache girls =)
I was on the fence about whether to push for a PR or just relax and enjoy knowing tomorrow is a 20 miler for me but my mind was made up before the first mile. I found myself running next to Mike and I felt really strong. We didn’t speak much at first. I didn’t want to chat with him if he felt like then he’d be “stuck” talking and slowing down. I mentioned that our pace was about 9:15 and if I could keep that pace I’d definitely PR. He reminded me we were on an incline. I really didn’t notice so when I realized that I could even push it faster on the downhills I started to solidify my decision. I would give it all I had. Next thing you know Mike became my pacer and coach. He really kept me going. I don’t think I’d have come close to that time without him. And I’m SO glad it happened sort of accidentally and wasn’t planned..
Me and Mike….Big thank you to Gary for taking this pic
The downhills were 8:30s and the flat parts were mainly 9:15s and the one hill at mile 5 I slowed down to 10:14. But I am proud to say that I ran the entire time. Usually (when we train in Prospect Park where the race took place) I walk up most of that hill or I strategically need to refill my water bottle at a water fountain. Not today. Maybe my pace slowed and I dramatized how crappy I was feeling, but I kept running.
We finished in 57:26, a 2 1/2 minute PR over the 2011 RnR Brooklyn 10k. I even pulled up my garmin data from that race to compare my splits side by side:
Interestingly I gave it a bigger push in the last mile in 2011.
The rest of the crew followed right behind. It was a great day to run.
the larger group of finishers
colorful shirt and medal!
happy girl!
We celebrated at JD and Karen’s house with pancakes! (I didn’t take a picture but they were delicious!). Once I got home I took the dog out into the woods for a little nature trail time. It’s the perfect complement to my weekend races. I can keep the legs warm and make it up to the doodlebug at the same time.
learned my lesson. state land NOT federal!
Surprisingly, I feel pretty good! I’m going to get to bed early tonight and plan to take it slow tomorrow for my 7 pre-race miles, plus the Staten Island half marathon.
Question: What did you do today? This is a BIG marathon weekend….know anyone running in Chicago, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California or Baltimore?
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