Just Keep Running

Riverside Park

If you want to train for a marathon or half marathon, you’re going to have to do long runs. This means each week, you are going to have to head out for a significant amount of time and just run. While speed work is fun for me, I often dread the long run. One of the hard parts of this, for me, is simply finding the time. Since I am home with my son for part of the day and there is not enough time when he is in school, I have been doing my long run on Sunday mornings. However, another hard part is getting over the mental block of believing I can run for that long. 2 and half hours sounds like a daunting amount of time to run.

Because I am only a week away from my first half-marathon, this meant that last week, I ran over 10 miles and I was running for half the afternoon, while my husband took my son to the American Museum of Natural History.

I did this long run along the coast of Manhattan at Riverside Park. I started at about  72^nd Street and ran up to 132^nd Street, turned around and ran back down to 54^th Street, then back uptown again. Heading uptown on the waterfront was a bit chilly, but manageable, with the wind at my back. Running downtown, however, was icy! The cold wind was in my face the whole time, along with the sun.

Sandy Hook

I had the same thing happen the week before, so I was somewhat prepared. I did my 9 mile run on the path at Sandy Hook and it was a gorgeous sunny day, but windy as well. However, there is nothing I love more than running on the waterfront.  I did that run as an out-and-back, as well, which meant I ran from the entrance gate to Fort Hancock and back to the gate, with the wind in my face when I started and at my back on the return.

I’m glad that the weather is getting warmer, so I can run outside these days. Three weeks ago, due to the weather, I was forced to do my long run on a treadmill at the gym. 8 miles on a treadmill is BORING.  To break it up, I thought of it as merely 4 – 2 mile runs and actually got off the treadmill and did a lap of the gym between each. That made it a lot more manageable.

I think it’s very amusing how on these long runs, I go through alternating stages of “Oh, god, I can’t go on!” and “This feels great, I could go forever!” Sometimes, at the end, I feel like I have another couple miles in me, and have to force myself to stop because I don’t want to create an injury I don’t have. This is pretty exciting and makes me look forward to my race next week.

No time like the present

My new bike rack is here and I am beyond excited. A whole world new bike riding world has opened up to me. As you may recall, I live on the side of a mountain. So, I haven’t really been able to ride my comfort bike anywhere.

There are times in life when you put off buying things that you really shouldn’t. This was one of them. One of the first things that I should have bought, when I got a bike, was a bike rack. Instead I put it off and my bike has basically sat, barely, used in my patio. With a bike rack, I can now take my bike down the Shore to ride or even just over to the Reservation. (Both of which have nice fairly flat paths.) I’m not sure why I waited so long, aside from just procrastination.

I did the same thing with the jogging stroller, which I never ended up buying, and to this day I regret that. I should have bought a jogging stroller the minute my son was born. Instead, I tried to run with his clunky regular stroller and ended up in regular disagreements with my husband over who was going to push the darn thing while we ran. When you wait on this sort on thing, you start second guessing buying it at all, because there is only a short window when you can actually use it before your child outgrows it. With the jogging stroller, I missed that window.

But, a bike rack is a different story. I will, hopefully, be able to use this for years to come. About a year ago, I actually got a great deal on a hitch style bike rack and bought it. However, it turned out that it was going to cost several hundred dollars to put a hitch on my car. I decided at that point to start researching trunk mounted bike racks. My only requirement was that it had to hold 3 bikes and have good reviews. I didn't want to be driving and have all of the bikes tumble to the road. Ultimately, my decision came down to a Thule rack and the Saris Bones. After asking a few of my friends, the preference seemed to be for the Saris. So, now it is here and I can’t wait to try it out.

Another great thing about having a bike rack is that now I can finally buy a road bike. I've been looking at a bunch of different ones, but have put of buying one because I had no way to get it home. Now I do. Yea!