It's been a ridiculously busy weekend. Erin and I watched the almost 4 hour long epic Lawrence of Arabia; I spent about 8 hours at Professor Thom's having beer and watching the bungling Cats go down in flames to UNC. And then, after stumbling out of bed just before afternoon today, I managed to make it out for 21 miles, get in some Xmas shopping with Erin, and do some work for the office. I need a weekend!
On Lawrence. This is a fantastic film that I'm just seeing for the first time. I'm not going to write a review because plenty has been written over the 40 years since its release by people who actually know stuff about film history. Google it. However, for fun, my co-worker's review was probably my favorite: "Peter O'Toole is hot! I mean, was hot."
Professor Thom's is a great little bar,
relatively new, on Second Avenue between 13th and 14th Street. It's apparently so hip that it has a myspace page and tons of "friends." I was there with the unlikely pairing of the University of Kentucky alumni and the University of Massachusetts alumni to watch UK play UNC in basketball, followed up with UMass playing some high school team in college football's Division 1-AA playoffs. Apparently, the UK and UMass alumni are common pairing for game watching (and there was talk of a road trip to Rupp to watch UK play UMass later in the season!). UMass won its game, by the way. However, since by halftime we'd been at this bar for going on 5 hours and, following the basketball game, all of the Kentucky people had switched to our official state drink (bourbon), I'm a little fuzzy on how exactly UMass won.
For today's run, I got in 21 miles along a route that I'd run a few months ago, that left me in a good mood. I was hoping for a repeat of the good vibes. Unfortunately, in a totally blatant LIE, Weather Underground reported that wind was "calm" when I checked it right before I left. That may have been true underground, but along the Hudson there was what felt like a 25 to 30 mph wind blowing straight out of the south. Had Weather Underground been truthful, I'd have planned a different route. Since it wasn't, and I ran up the Hudson to 129th street, before turning around to head back to 14th street, I got the full force for about 6 miles. The last 6 miles. Of the 21. It was a lot like the weather in DC in October. Since it took a lot of effort not to bag the run and hop on the subway today ("There's no shame in calling it after 18. . . . Come on, you can gut out an extra 24 minutes."), when I wasn't even trying for speed, I'm feeling a little better about the poor performance in the wind in DC. Anyway, today's run was a toughie, but I wrapped it up in 2:42:08, for a 7:43 average pace. I'm pretty proud of this, because I finished up 15 miles at about a 7:50 average. So I pulled the overall average down in the last six despite running into a headwind.
Today's run brings the weekly total to 55, which is where I peaked for MCM. The plan, I think, is to front-load mileage next week, but only do in the low 40s total so that I can run in the Joe Kleinerman 10K for the Flyers next Sunday. The Flyer guys are sitting in second in the division and, while the gap is probably too far to make up in this last race, we'll do what we can . . . I'm thinking after a short next week, the week of the 11th I'll re-peak at around 55-60, with a 3 to 3:10 run included. It'll probably be around 24 miles, but also about a long in time as my marathon. Since I was shooting for 20 miles on long runs before MCM, I never got in a run over 2:45. So, I think a 3+ hour run would be good for me.
Week in Review
| Monday | Rest | -- | -- |
| Tuesday | 8.6 miles | 1:03:54 | 7:26/mile Tempo |
| Wednesday | 11.3 miles | 90:13 | 7:59/mile |
| Thursday | 8.0 miles | 63:30 | 7:56/mile |
| Friday | 6.35 | 48:00 | 7:34/mile |
| Saturday | Rest | -- | -- |
| Sunday | 21.0 miles | 2:42:08 | 7:43/mile |
| Total | 55.25 Miles | -- | -- |
