Maybe there was something to that Easy Run

Yesterday was an "easy" day, replacing a "rest" day because Erin and I are going "out of town" for our anniversary this weekend, and I've rearranged the schedule. By "out of town," I mean that we're leaving Brooklyn for a B&B in the Bronx, which really seems like it's a different country. It's going to be fantastically fun, but the travel is revealing my inner spastic-ness, in that I immediately rearrange the training schedule. As Ryan, who's also shooting to BQ (but in Chicago), and who's running the same schedule as me (but a week ahead) put it: "I'm finding that I'm not only committed, but borderline compulsive about keeping my training plan." Yup. That's it in a nutshell. I'm such a spaz.

Today was 9 miles with 4 at tempo. I expected this to be really tough, since it'd be my fourth day running in a row, something I haven't done since several weeks before marathon training began in earnest. It was tough, but not awful. Most of the difficulty was in congestion on the track (really, do you need to walk 4 wide across the inside three lanes on a turn? Is that really necessary?) and a headwind into the near turn, although there was definitely some residual fatigue from Sunday's 15 miler. Despite challenges, the tempo was in 26:39 or 6:40 average pace. Perfect. The worst part of the run though was during the easy portions -- the 5 miles of warmup/cooldown that I did on the McCarren Park 2/3 mile dirt loop. At the north end were two bums, passed out on the park bench laying on top of each other. No problem except I passed them 4 times and I think the smell was worse each time. The last time through, I'm not sure what happened, but one of them was laying on the ground. Don't know if the one on the bottom decided he didn't like being smothered or if the one on top just rolled off the bench and couldn't get up.

By the way, remember a few weeks ago the post that mentioned the Orthodox Jewish man running in dress slacks and an oxford on the Williamsburg Bridge? I was browsing some Flyer photos during a break yesterday and apparently someone else noticed him at a race. Honestly, this is the guy. I remain impressed.