Race Walkers?

For a change of scenary (and since I needed to head into the City for work anyway) I decided to do today's long run in Central Park. I'm super bummed to have missed JW's Ventillator Run, but with the L train on the fritz, I wasn't willing to travel 3 hours involving multiple trasfers and shuttle buses for it. Bad timing.

So, when I arrived in the park, the Metropolitan 15K Racewalk Championship was in progress. Now, I've seen a lot of silly athletes in my life. Runners with silly strides, arm motions, butt wiggles. Runners in silly outfits, but more often bikers in really silly outfits. I've even seen runners with silly arm swings and butt-wiggles in super silly biker outfits. However, I've never seen anything quit like racewalking. It has the silly arm-swing, a super-silly butt wiggle (especially for the faster, uh . . . walkers) and some fantastically silly racewalker outfits. If any of you remember the episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal becomes a racewalker, there was actually a guy dressed like THAT! Of course, any sport where the average age at a Championship event appears to be pushing 60 has got to be somewhat silly . . . or possibly shuffleboard.

The best moment was when a guy with his kid in a jogging stroller, stops to deal with the kid. He pulls into the race-walking course to avoid getting hit by a runner or cyclist while he's playing dad. A race official runs up and yells at him. At this point, the closest racewalker was in sight, about 1/2 mile away -- at least 4 or 5 minutes. Guy says, "I'll be done long before they get here." But race official won't let it go and yells at him. Dad starts jogging away, but flips the guy off on the way. Weird. I guess that race official had the power go to his head. Lest you be outraged, the kid was oblivous to all of these shenanigans and looked to be having a great time watching the people in the park. He waved at me as I ran by. I waved back.

So, the run. One full loop (6 miles), one lower loop (5 miles) and the Middle 4 (4 miles) for a grand total of 15. This was hard. I know I've said it before, but Central Park's a hard place to run. On a good note, it was only about 70 degrees when I got started and was raining slightly, but that didn't quite make up for the difficulty of the terrain. Oh, well. It'll toughen me up for later, I suppose. Time was 1:58:45 (7:55 pace).

Week-in-review
4 down and 14 to go! Second week in a row over 40. Legs are starting to feel fatigued now. Most runs, they don't feel quite fresh, but I don't know how much the crazy-a$$ work loads been inhibiting recovery and how much is related to actual training.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
Rest	8.0 Miles	5.0 Miles	10.33 miles	Rest	4.0 Miles	15.0 Miles	42.33
-	7:17	7:54	7:49	-	7:02	7:55	-