This and That

It seems to me that weekends have shifted from a time of carefree fun to simply being a two-day recovery period from the week. When did that happen? Last night, I had planned on going out, but I was just so tired I couldn’t make it. I fell asleep reading a book at 9:00 and ended up sleeping over 13 hours. Then, tomorrow morning, I have a 5:30 wakeup call (to meet Sarah and her orthopedist for a run) so tonight’s going to be spent relaxing around here and going to sleep early again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the run — I’m thrilled to be back to a (somewhat) normal running routine again, but still that’s crazy early.

Why do I include that somewhat? Well, I still can’t do any long runs. My physical therapist says I can’t run more than 45 minutes at a time. Bad part of that is that I can’t do any long runs. And, for some strange reason, I’ve really been craving the long run lately. (How strange is this? I never would have believed this last year — I used to loathe the long runs.) Good news is, you can still fit a fairly solid workout into 45 minutes.

Take today, for example. I waited until 2:00 (when it had reached 85 degrees) and then headed out to the islands for a 6 mile run. I came back exhausted and had to literally wring my shirt out because I had sweated so much. Before the run, I had an Accel Gel that NY Wolve had sent to me. It sat on the stomach great and provided good energy, but I’d be a little hesitant to try it during a run because it was so thick — it seems like you’d need to have lot’s of fluid to wash it down and that’s something that’s not always available.

This Thursday will be another good workout — I’m headed up to Van Cortlandt Park to race a Cross Country 5K. The PT gave me the green light to run it and I’m thrilled to test out my legs a bit. I doubt I’ll P.R., but I’m hoping to at least finish under 19:00.

If you clicked that last link, you just saw my newest website. I launched NYC Running Races this week and am very excited about it. I’m hoping to keep it going as a comprehensive list of all the New York area running races that take place. NYRR is great, but sometimes it’s nice to know about (and run) the smaller events out there. Joe Garland has already posted a couple races, and I’m hoping the rest of you will as well. Or, at the least, just tell me if you hear news of any local events and I can research them on my own. Also, of course, let me know if you have any thoughts/suggestions about the site.