Okay, this race was awesome for several reasons. First of all, The Hardies and the Tolberts were there. Second of all, I asked Zack if he wouldn’t mind shooting the race for the Examiner article. He obliged. Linda, actually contributed as well. Dude, the shots turned out amazing. Zach has some skills. He got some killer shots with the fisheye lens, that made me want to go out and buy one for myself, today. The temperature was only 79 degrees, but it felt like 1000 degrees, being that the humidity was at 94%. It definitely gave more incentive to finish the race quickly though. I scored a 26:39, with a pace of 6′39″. I was pretty happy with my time.
The shot above, is me about to cross the finish (shot by Zack). The one below is Reagan (in true form) leaping across the finish (taken by Linda).
We had a really great time. To check out some more photos, click over here.
The Nike + saga continues. Reagan and I purchased Nike + Sportbands about a year ago, to help us keep track of our running (and to help keep us motivated). For the most part, they have been great. There have definitely been some hiccups along the way, including a design flaw, which caused the LCD to fail. But today, I swapped out our defective old Sportbands for these new ones. I’m pretty excited to try mine out and see if it is any better. Now if I could just get my knee to consistently work correctly.
The Truscott’s new pad in RI is located on a seriously awesome longboarding hill. There isn’t much traffic, and it is a nice steep grade. The only problem is, that there isn’t really any run-off room, unless you want to do some dirt riding, which is what I ended up doing. Tadd was riding behind me on a bike, filming. It is a little shaky at first, but then stabilizes.
Sorry, that this is going to be kind of a rant. So, skip it and I won’t be offended. I have been really frustrated with my running for the past couple of weeks. I have been having problems with my ITB (I think), since the BK half marathon. I ran it with some new shoes that have less support and are made for a more neutral stride. I didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference. I thought that maybe they were just wearing out (since that also tends to make the knees a little sore). So I switched to some even heavier shoes with less support. After that I noticed the problem getting worse. It was to the point that it hurt every time I would descend stairs.
I started reading a lot of articles about knee pain caused by running, including a few that gave me ideas on some stretches to do. I also talked to the people at the running store where I shop, about it. I started doing the stretches and it seemed like things were getting better, especially after I switched back to my old shoes. After my race last weekend, I didn’t have any pain at all.
Then yesterday, I wanted to run 12 mi.. It had finally stopped raining, and I was home early enough to do the whole run before it got dark. I could only make it about 7 and 1/4 before the knee pain was too much. What is wrong with my stupid legs? So freaking frustrating!!! In fairness, It could be because I haven’t been doing the ITB stretches since last week.
When running in pain, everything else starts to bug the crap out of me. I start hating what ever song is playing in my headphones. I get pissed off at all of the people who aren’t walking or riding on the correct side of the path (especially on the bridge). Of course I never say anything to them, or even give them dirty looks. This is the best part:
For whatever annoying reason, the GW generally only has one side that is open for pedestrian traffic. I prefer it when the south side is open, because there are no stairs, and the breeze is generally blowing north (blowing exhaust away from the path). Last night I had already done several laps of the bridge (was already in pain and pissed off) when an 18 wheeler came across spewing thick black smokey exhaust. The breeze was blowing it all straight into the faces of the people on the ped path. The stuff smells like a trash fire. In an act of defeated anger, I pulled the collar of my jersey up over my nose, and gave the driver the bird as he drove by. He probably didn’t even see me. Or if he did, he was probably laughing. It’s kind of pathetic the way that I let myself become indignant just because of a little knee pain.
On a positive note, I plan to be at the beach for the next 2 weekends in a row. Which means, no shoes getting in the way. I heard that running in the sand is supposed make your calves super toned. So, maybe if I work really hard, I can get some sexy calves like Reagan’s.
Sunday morning’s race was a pretty fun one. Luckily, the rain held off for just long enough. There was actually some pleasant misting during the last portion, that felt awesome. After switching back to my “Wave Inspire” shoes, I’m happy to report that I was able to run without any knee pain, whatsoever, on Sunday. My time wasn’t the most amazing. I was aiming for a 6:30 pace, which I managed to pull out, for the first 3 miles. But I couldn’t sustain it. I ended up with a 34:38. I felt extra slow though, since it was a club points race. Club points meant that all of the NYRR track clubs had their fastest guys in, trying to score points.
Reagan, kind of took it easy for her race. She had a respectable pace, but wasn’t feeling to hot. She ended up with a 40:36. For me, I was just proud to be sporting my custom made Fathers Day jersey. Another kind of cool thing, was that, for the second race in a row, I had a symetrical number. Last weekend I was 77. This week, I was 88. Hahahah.
Last Sunday’s MotoGP race was one, that will no doubt go down as one of the all time best battles in GP history. Jorge Lorenzo got a great start, out of the grid, with Stoner following in second position for the first few laps. It did not take long for Rossi to work his way into second position, where he began an epic battle with Jorge Lorenzo for the podium. Lorenzo and Rossi, are teammates on the Fiat Yamaha factory team. In theory, they are riding the same bike. Rossi overtook Lorezno about half way through the race, and lead for several laps. With only a handful of laps to go, Lorenzo was able to steal the lead from Rossi. For the last few laps, the Yamaha teammates, put one of the most intensely hard fought battles ever witnessed in the premier class of motorcycle racing. Rossi was able to pull out the win, with an amazing overtaking maneuver rounding the corner into the finish straight. A more exciting finish could not have been scripted.
Stoner took third position in the race. Rossi moved back to the top of the points, in the World Championship standings. Lorenzo was bumped into second position, and Stoner remains in third position. Full results can be found here.
The next race will be at the Assen Circuit, in the Netherlands, on June 27.
I borrowed this book from my friend at church on Sunday. It turns out that he had just barely received it back from another one of our friends who had just finished reading it. I guess none of that is really relevant, hahahaha. Anyway, I just started it on the train yesterday morning. Today, I’m only in chapter four and I’m totally hooked already. It isn’t particularly well written or anything, but it is super inspiring. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any plans to run an ultra marathon, any time soon. But, the way that the author writes about the way he relates to running, is very motivating. It makes me want to quit my job and just pull a Forest Gump, or something. If you are into running, I think that it is safe to say you would probably dig this book.
On a completely unrelated note, today is Tuesday. Normally I would have posted a JKE question today. Last night as I sat down to write one, I wasn’t really feeling, any of the questions that are currently sitting in the inbox right now. I didn’t feel like posting any recycled material either. So, actually I’m taking down the JKE blog. I mean, maybe I will start doing JKE again at some point in the future. But for a once a week post, I feel like it doesn’t really merit it’s own separate url and page design. Plus Reagan is always making fun of me for having too many blogs. So, it will be one less thing to catch heat about.
This weekend was full of inanities and insanities, as usual. Two of Reagan’s good friends from high school came to visit, beginning Thursday. One of them became very ill on Friday and headed home to DC. Reagan’s not-sick friend hung out with us until Saturday afternoon. Friday night, Reagan and Terrah (Reagan’s not-sick friend) came down to the Financial District to meet me after work, for dinner. Then we took a little stroll around the south end of the island. I had a good time practicing taking photos in low light. The shot above is on the top deck, behind the South Street Seaport Mall. The shot below is at the promenade in Battery Park City.
Saturday morning, we rose nice and early to catch the local running A train downtown to Central Park. Reagan and I had a 10k there. Terrah was a great sport, to tag along, and hang on to our bag, so that we didn’t have to check it. She also took some pretty good shots of us. Here we are with our friend Mike Cuomo before the race.
Here is a great shot of Reagan approaching the finish line.
Originally the race was called the “dash and splash” because there was going to be a huge pool party after the race, for all of the runners. Ultimately, it turns out that the pool doesn’t open to the public until July 1, so the race was changed to just “Dash 10K.” We definitely could have used the splash part though. It was 71 degrees and over 60% humidity. Lucky, the majority of the race was overcast. The race staff also had the foresight to provide frozen juice bars in the post finish area. I clocked a 43:11. I was fairly happy with my time, given that I haven’t really had time to run, for about 2 weeks leading up to the race. Now that the Chrysler thing is all wrapped up, I should have a bit more free time to log some miles.
Today started off great. The sun was shining through the curtains, when I woke up. The birds were chirping, etc. I went down to CP to shoot this race before church, and got an email, while I was there, that some stuff was going to be happening at work today.
The race was awesome. I wasn’t too stoked about having to go the rest of the way downtown afterward, to have to spend the rest of the day indoor. The biggest bummer is that a lot of what I’m doing today, involved a waiting around for things to happen. Since I had my camera with me, from this morning. Here are a few shots. The first one is the progress on the new 1 World Trade Center Tower:
The next one, is the view looking north, from one of the conference rooms that I’m working out of.
Not nearly as good as our southern views. But at least looking out this side doesn’t make me feel as bad about being inside today. It would be a different story, if I could see the promenade, and the water.
I opted out of the the 5k, this morning, so that I would have plenty of energy for the longboard race, in Central Park. Dude-ahhh, it was bananas. Around 100 people showed. It was super chaotic and fun. We started in the south west corner of the park and did one loop on Central Park Drive (6 miles). It took about 25 minutes. The beginning was the craziest part. A guy hit a rickshaw cab, right in front of me and went down. So I hurried and stopped, as not to hit him. Then people were plowing into my back. I picked up my board and ran past the pile up, so that I still was able to get into the front pack. I was one of the first 15, or so, finishers. Col Carter came down for the race too. It was cool to have a friend there with me. Because, I’ll be honest, I felt a little bit out of place at moments (with not tattoos, not smoking cigarettes, etc.). Anyway, after the race, we decided to roll down and check out the new Times Square, traffic-less Broadway. This is another one of Bloomberg’s ideas. It was pretty cool, save the lawn chairs. I felt like they should have set up some makeshift trailer homes on the side walk, or something to go with them. Or maybe some pink lawn flamingos. But the kicker was, that I have NEVER seen it so crowded down there. Col said that he hasn’t either. I took this crappy pic with my phone, which doesn’t really even do it justice.
After venturing into Times Square, we headed back up town, ate lunch and headed home. I showered and sped off to visit my little pumpkin. She was as cute as ever. But I could tell that she missed her mom. I’m not going to lie, I loved hogging her all to myself. She was a little bit cranky when I was bathing her, but once I got her all dried off and brushed her hair, she just wanted to play play play. She even cracked a couple of smiles for the camera (again, crappy blackberry cam. Sorry). I wish that I could have held my hand steady for this one.
When I got her all dressed and was cleaning up the bath stuff, I set her in her crib. There she just sat up and watched everything that I did. It was so freaking cute.
We have been talking a lot lately about how much Piper loves to stand up. It is true. If you lift her up, her legs go out straight and she wants to dance around. Well, I was goofing off with her, getting ready to leave and here is a video of her in her crib, showing off. Once again, I apologize for the extremely poor resolution of this crap that I took with my phone.
