Stupid Cold

I've been gymming it for the last couple workouts due to the frigid temps outside. (But thank god I don't live Upstate, where up to 100" of snow is forecast!) The workouts were a mix. On Tuesday's "tempo" run, my hips felt extremely tight, which I assume was from climbing hills over loose snow on Sunday. After the run, my hips were so tight that I actually couldn't do my normal "bicycle crunches" after the run because I couldn't lift my legs off the floor. Note to self, remember to stretch those hips.

Last night, I felt fatigued, which makes sense following my hard run Tuesday and the long-ish run Sunday. So, I zoned into the first half of the Duke-UNC basketball game and took it easy. I have to say, it's good that UNC has such talented players because Duke totally out executed in the first half. UNC just looked bad, bad passes, forced shots, forced passes into triple coverage in the post. So rather than leaving in a good mood, I left my mill in a huff since UNC was down by 5 at the half. This was actually exceptionally close. As poorly as UNC played, and as solid as Duke's execution was, if the talent levels had been equally matched Duke would have led by 20. In the end, although I left after the first half, in the final period UNC did come back to win. So, while the result was great, I hate to see anything good go Duke's way, even if it's only a halftime lead.

In other news, Kentucky knocked off, or squeaked past, SEC cellar-dweller USC in a mid-week tune-up before hosting #1 Flordia on Friday night. ESPN, for several years, has been hyping this as a "Rivalry Game." For me certainly, and I think for most UK fans, calling Florida a "rival" of the program with the most wins of any school and the second-most NCAA championships may still be a little strong. But since #18UK (1 on the wins list, 2 on the NCAA championship list) has already lost to #5UNC (2 on the win list) and #2UCLA (1 on the NCCA list) this year, I guess we'll have to consider Florida an acceptable "rival" for this decidedly mediocre Kentucky basketball team. However, I really wish Indiana had a good team again, or Bob Knight, because that was a rivalry -- coaches that hated each other's programs, #2 and #3 on the NCAA championship list, border state's flagship schools. That had all the elements. And even after Bob Knight left, you could still hate Mike Davis.



Tuesday: 4.5 miles in 30:54 (6:52/mile, 2.5 miles at 6:40 and faster)
Wednesday: 6.1 miles in 45:00 (7:23/mile)

Frigid

9. 17 mph wind.

In Metric, -13. 27kph wind.

Loose snow the length of the trail, approximately 1/4" thick.

Ice. Especially on hills.

Ice chunks on the Hudson.

Those are the details of the run for seven Flyers yesterday in Upper Nyack, New York. I, for one, on the subway ride to meet the group, kept raiding my dry clothes bag for extra warmth (I think I need that T-shirt now!).

Apparently, Ward called Christoph, who was our guide to this trail, the day before to say, "Hey, Christoph, it's going to be really cold. Let me know if you think we should cancel. . ." Christoph's response on the ride out of the City? "See, what he didn't realize is . . . I'm German." (I'm not really sure what that means, exactly -- "I'm German and we're rigid," "I'm German and in the Bavarian forests this weather is warm" -- but it was still pretty funny.)

I'm calling the run 13.5 and am going to forget the time due to the conditions. I'm a little unnerved to report that Christoph and Skylight went out for more! They ended up running 20 in this weather (I hung out in the car during their extra mileage, with the heater, eating my banana and reading some Dickens. ) For me, 13.5 doubles my prior longest run of 2007, and brings me to 32 miles for my first consistent week of the year. That 32 also more than doubles my total mileage for '07, but it seemed like a good "getting back into it" amount.

Afterwards, we hit up a really cute cafe for brunch. Christoph, Skylight and I had about 7 plates between the three of us, which was somewhat ridiculous. However, it was really tasty and if you're ever in Nyack, New York, it's was called Strawberry Place.

(And, since its that time of year, the Alma Mater staged a 14-point, second-half comeback to beat Arkansas on the road Saturday. Go Cats!)

Peak Number 1: Complete

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	--	--