“daylight, save me” time

So the Northeast was once again pummeled with precipitation…and for a change, it was not snow!!  Nope, instead it was at least 2 straight full days of rain, wind, nor’easter, you name it.  And you know that, i feel lucky that all I took away from it was a busted umbrella.  Some of my parents’ friends in NJ didn’t fare so well, being without power, and even though my parents still have theirs, they’re being told to stock up on bottled water…

So, not a weekend to be outside I guess?  Well according to someone at work, the fact that the weather was gonna be so crappy this weekend meant it was a perfect weekend to get some work done!!  Anyone surprised that no one laughed at her “joke”?  We were all either rolling or eyes, or IMing to each other about how that wasn’t funny, that we couldn’t believe she said that (well in a sick way, we could believe it)…hell, I bet she was cursing losing an hour this weekend to Daylight Savings Time because it meant one less hour for everyone to work!!

Me, it meant one less hour to sleep!!  After a crazy week last week, I sure was feeling that lost hour today.  (I was so out of it, I didn’t even hear my landline ring and a message being left on the answering machine!)  Don’t worry, I didn’t spend the entire weekend sleeping (though it would have been nice!)  Decided to suck it up and hit the gym yesterday and actually did a coupla dreadmill miles plus a yoga class…there was no way I was gonna run outside-those winds were scary!!  Looks like a lot thought the same I did, after looking at the stats from the NYRR 8000…I can’t remember the last time that the number of finishers for a NYRR race was in the 2000′s!  (exception being Club Champs, of course.)

And today, I wanted to get a longer run in…thankfully there was a window with no thunder and downpours!  I still wanted to avoid the park since it was a little windy, so hit the West Side Highway with a little time in Riverside Park too…wound up with 9.3 thankfully pain-free miles…my longest run since last October, so maybe there has been some progress made?  I know this is not as impressive as those who have done major mileage this past weekend, but this is big for me.  Weather wasn’t half-bad either…was able to wear shorts and the rain was pretty light…was a bit windy though, fought some headwinds running north and my running cap almost blew off at one point!  (and mental note…wear the IT band strap for long runs…vanity be damned.)

Thankfully, not feeling any afteraffects just yet, we’ll see tomorrow…not running tomorrow just in case.   But hopefully with the days getting longer, and with some races on the horizon, may help me be less of a slacker…we shall see!

And non-running related (sorry!)…but am I the only one who is addicted to all of “The Cutting Edge” movies…both the originals and the spinoffs that they show on ABC Family?  Even though those spinoffs are made-for-TV types, and they all have the same exact storyline…can’t help but like them.  (yes, I was watching today when those movies were on one after the other )Though there is nothing like the original…

"toe pick!"

better than SATC

Original plan for Monday after work was as follows…go see the Sex and the City movie. Then meet up with the Monday night downtown crew at Shake Shack. But those plans got changed when I got an email from a friend asking if I wanted to go to a special screening of Run For Your Life-the documentary about Fred Lebow and the NYC Marathon. As I missed the movie when it was playing at the Tribeca Film Festival, and I had heard nothing but rave reviews about it, I jumped at the chance. And it was worth it!!

First off…as this was a special screening in honor of NYRR’s 50th Anniversary and “Running Week“…there were actual running celebrities in the audience too…including Grete Waitz, Bill Rodgers, Kathrine Switzer (and a couple even participated in a little Q and A afterwards!!) I kinda felt like I was at a star-studded movie premiere or something :-p

As this movie has had many reviews…instead of writing up a full review, I figured I’d mention the points that stood out most in my mind.

• How “back to basics” everything was. No CoolMax, no PowerGel, no chip mats, no 5K splits, tearing the tag off the bib, how small the original finish line was, the retro running clothes…it is amazing how far things have come.
• Fred tossing the “clown” out of the way at the start line in Staten Island. He obviously had no tolerance for those who didn’t take his race seriously!! (Wonder if he would have done the same to “Mr. Testicles” :-p )
• How I recognized so many things in Central Park…the bridges, the drives…and they really did not look much different than they do 30 years later. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same
• Fred’s “ladies man” reputation…kind of an “Austin Powers”-esque quality :-p
• All the different neighborhoods in the five boroughs, coming together as they do now on Marathon Sunday.
• Not seeing ING’s name plastered on anything!!
• Fred’s extreme dedication to his vision, his race…just like a marathon runner.
• Fred running his race for the first (and last) time with Grete Waitz by his side, breaking his own finish line tape…I felt that moment was the most emotional.

After seeing this movie, it’s gotten me more pumped up to run the NYC Marathon this year…and very appreciative of the efforts of so many people-Fred Lebow especially-to give me the privilege to run the 5 boroughs in November.

So yes-this was definitely worth passing up seeing SATC…I have plenty of time to see that (though PLEASE do not give me any spoilers-thanks in advance), but I didn’t know if I would have another chance to see this great movie, about this important piece of NYC running history. (And as it turned out, the Monday nite crew didn’t even stick around at Shake Shack since it was too crowded and wound up going elsewhere!)

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Another race that was mentioned in the movie was the Mini 10K…spoke a bit about the history of that race and how they tried to draw attention to women’s running…can you believe they actually used Playboy bunnies to promote the event in the beginning?

So yeah…that race is coming up on Saturday, and the weather is not looking too good…looking to be a scorcher similar to 2005 and 2007. If the weather had cooperated, I was hoping for at least a course PR (48:59)…but I have a feeling all goals are gonna have to be thrown out the window, and just have to settle for trying to run an even race (more like 2007 than 2005), whatever that may be…I’m sure I’ll know at mile 1 what kind of day it’s gonna be…

shoe upgrades suck

no better way to put it.

there’s a saying that goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” someone forgot to tell the running shoe companies that.

yeah, the infamous shoe search. i actually am very pleased with the Asics Cumulus 7′s that I had bought back in April-I don’t think I’ve been this happy with a trainer in a very long time. Unfortunately I had bought them a month before Asics came out with the upgrade. Right now, the mileage on these shoes is pushing 300, so I figure I needed a game plan in terms of what to wear for the remainder of the training cycle. I thought the best thing to do was work a new pair into the rotation now, and then break in a 2nd pair in early October and run the marathon in those shoes.

So back to JackRabbit I went to check out the Cumulus 8′s. They felt fine, but when running on the treadmill, there apparently was some late-stage pronation that wasn’t there when I ran in the 7′s (I wore my orthotics in both.) So the salesperson brought out something that she said was similar-Brooks Axiom 2. I was a little suspicious because I thought I remembered someone saying that was more of a lightweight trainer and she said “no it’s more in line with the Cumulus.” Anyway, it felt fine running in them, no pronation. So I decided to give those a shot.

I got home and did a little Internet research…and just as I thought, the Axioms are more in line with shoes like the DS-Trainers. Shit. I should never have been sold these shoes. They have to go back. (And normally, JackRabbit has great service-but this particular saleperson was not quite up to speed.)

So here I am, no closer to a shoe solution. So, my faithful readers, do you recommend that I continue the search, or find a site online that still carries the Cumulus 7′s and get 2 pairs of them to last me through the marathon? (And if anyone knows of a site that carries the Cumulus 7′s in a women’s size 8-please let me know!! I’d be everso appreciative. My usual haunts either don’t have the 7′s or don’t have my size.)

Got in a 3.2 mile run tonite to bring me to a little over 30 miles this week. 32 on tap for next week, and I’ll thankfully have plenty of company for my long run, as I’ll be helping pace lead during NYRR’s Long Training Run. I’ve done this the last 2 years and it’s fun (and I’m actually not too bad at keeping the pace!) Then the following week my long run gets scaled back a little bit. I just need to beat the heat this week…I have a feeling I will be doing morning workouts this week.

Other randomly scattered thoughts:

• Another blogger meetup!! I met the very nice Jay T while he was in the city today on a little bike excursion-we met up to grab a bite to eat and chatted for a bit about things like blogging, work, running, and oh, all of you :-p
• How we know MySpace is taking over the world (or at least the Internet world)-a movie’s “official” site is a MySpace site.
• It’s summertime. It’s hot. ConEd really needs to get with the program already. In addition to the power probs in Queens and Staten Island the last coupla weeks, my office building had issues on Friday-the main floor was having power problems and they were asking all the other floors to conserve power, so our office manager turned off all the overhead lights. I couldn’t work with just light from my computer, so I just worked from home the rest of the day. With another scorcher week coming up, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happening again… (i know this is child’s play compared to what happened in Queens, but still annoying all the same.)

that’s all for now folks…another loverly workweek awaits.

now playing: “every day is a winding road” ~ sheryl crow

random thoughts-holiday weekend edition

• if you haven’t seen The Devil Wears Prada yet, you simply must-so, so good. and i don’t say this about many movies still in theaters. great soundtrack too.
• but it sold out mad fast on Friday and I couldn’t get tix…but I got in to see it, thanks to some quick thinking and scheming on my friend’s part. she got treated to some drinks afterwards as a thank you
• and at a nice little wine bar on the UWS afterwards, in the hopes of there possibly being guys there…nope. one did talk to us, but turned out to be a freak…called my friend “evil” and me “tough and stubborn,” in the meantime, he seemed very taken with his text-message conversation with some chick the entire time. ugh. will it ever stop???
• did the Arches Run with the Flyers on Saturday-a little over 8 miles that takes you “off the beaten path” of Central Park, and under all the arches and over all the bridges. And if you thought that the park drives are hilly, you discover hills that you never knew existed before (and prefer to keep that way!) however, this run is a great way to really see a lot of the history of Central Park. Flyers who are reading…if you haven’t done this run before, do it next year. it’s so worth it.
• had a brief drinks date tonite with a guy i had met over memorial day weekend at some jewish singles thingie. we played phone/email tag for a month, he was traveling and stuff…hey, at least we were consistent with only seeing each other on holiday weekends. though it probably wasn’t a good idea to let so much time pass inbetween because…yep, you guessed it, nice guy, no chemistry. and i’m coming to the conclusion more and more lately that i can only date runners or other athletes…like those are the only types of guys who understand me and my goals…and the fact that running is such a big part of my life these days. (and i’m sure quite a few of you out there can relate to that…)

now playing: “promiscuous” ~ nelly furtado & timbaland