Etiquette

Here's a suggestion on manners,which, if it has not been mandated by Emily Yoffe, should be. Let me set the scene . . . Imagine it's a crisp spring morning. Your dog wants you to take it for a walk. It's scratching the door. You put on your shoes and take it outside. Now, you're outside the front door of your vinyl-siding house with a second floor entrance, standing at the top of the concrete stair that goes down to street level. You see a runner coming down the sidewalk. Runner waves at you. You wave back. When runner's head gets even with the edge of the concrete stair . . . you allow your dog to run to the edge and start urinating into the street, or I should say, urinating at the runner! Gross!

(Okay, I did have the iPod on and didn't hear the dog honking, but that should be a non-issue because his urine did NOT have right of way.)

• Tuesday: 5.25 miles in 39:30 (7:31/mile: Erin gave me a cold she had last week. This was tougher than it should have been because I'm all drugged up.)
• Wednesday: 4.15 miles in 29:47 (7:11/mile: Easier, felt better, or maybe just ran faster to get home to shower off canine excretion)
  

That's Better

OK folks. I'm feeling better. This illness lasted a total of about three days, which confirms that I picked it up from Erin, who'd had a three-day mystery illness with many of the same symptoms about a week before. Of course, she didn't have the fever, but I assume that I'm just lucky, or maybe, as Thomas suggested, it was worse for me because of the marathon, or maybe, as NY Flygirl suggested, it's because of my workload (Tuesday, I was behind my desk until 11p, but doped up on Tylenol and Sudafed and with my overcoat pulled up to my chest. Quite comical, I assure you). Whatever. The fever broke on Wednesday evening and I can honestly say I've never been so happy to be uncomfortably sweating in my suit at the office. I know that's gross, but deal. I felt much better.

The bad nights of sleep carried over into Thursday's run, which I did in McCarren Park for the dirt surface. It went fine for a 'coming-of-a-cold' run. (Today's run was tough for a different reason, namely the 15mph headwind that I ran into for the length of Manhattan.)

Can I add, for the record, that I find this just awful.

Nealis guessed the two women took a shortcut that made the race about 20 miles, instead of the standard 26.2.

"We get so much data on the runners now that it's become very hard to cheat," Nealis said. "They either made a quick turn and cut off about 6.5 miles, or they got a little aggressive and jumped on Metro."

If you're going to cheat at a marathon, don't cheat your way into the top 10. Or how bout this? Just don't cheat!

I've been having trouble figuring out what to do with myself. Even though I'm still running about 25 miles a week, that frees up hours of time. So far, I've spent most of that time watching t.v. and playing PlayStation. That may change soon as by the end of this week I'll have to commit -- either way -- with regard to Houston.

Thursday: McCarren Park for 4.0 miles in 29:15 (7:19/mile)
Saturday: Queensboro Loop for 11.2 miles in 1:27:44 (7:50/mile)

Sick?

So, today's run was HARD. Of course, when I got home and found out I was running a low grade fever (99.9) and considering that since about lunch yesterday my head and chest have started getting really congested and stomach's been more and more upset, I think we've found the reason. I don't like this game.

WB O&B, 4.8 miles in 37:24 (7:47/mile)