Week 10: Streaking and Getting Back in Action

Tummy hell seems to have (mostly) subsided so I'm climbing back onto marathon training.  For week 10 I've decided to take 2 miles off of each of my planned runs.  I've also decided to start streaking (running at least 1 mile per day) because I felt really incredible during the holiday run streak.  I'm not sure that I'll streak all the way through the marathon, but I am going to try to streak through September for the very least.

Day 64 (August 31): I ran 4 miles on the treadmill.  I did it mostly at a very easy pace and just tried to enjoy myself.

Day 65 (September 1): Streak day!  I did 1.1 miles on the treadmill.

Day 66 (September 2): 8 miles! on the treadmill.  This took a whole lot of motivation.  First I watched an episode of the BBC show "secret eaters" before turning over to my favorite treadmill show, the biggest loser.  The first 5 miles went really fine but the last 3 or so were a struggle.  I felt really weak/terrible immediately after I finished, but by the time I took a shower and ate some food I felt much, much better.  I'm not sure why I felt so bad but at least if I really needed to bail I was in my building instead of in some random outdoors place.

Day 67 (September 3): 5 miles on the treadmill.  The wifi was down and I was unable to stream video over my data connection on my cellphone.  So I turned on songza and made a game with myself in which I changed the speed of the treadmill every time there was a song change.  4 days in a row on the treadmill is really hard to deal with mentally, but when the weather is absolutely so terrible, you've gotta do what you've gotta do!

Day 68 (September 4): I did a 1 mile streak run outdoors.  It was nice to just get up and go and not worry about anything.  I didn't bring my phone and even left my door unlocked.  I figured the odds of someone trying to break into my apartment and rob me in the 12 minutes I'd be gone was unlikely =P  I also cycled to and from my Chinese lesson for some cross training.

Day 69 (September 5):  This was the day of my long run.  I knew that I needed a place with lots of people and support because I wasn't sure about my tummy issues.  I decided to run in central park and was joined by Susan from Runners United NYC.  I got to the park at 7am and ran to the top of the park where I met Susan.  She's also a newer runner and about my pace.  I think that she's actually probably way speedier than I am, but she slowed down for me =D  I had a really enjoyable time running with her because it is great to have a distraction during a long run.  I think that runners are generally a really supportive bunch.  I did 14.5 miles at a pace way faster than my normal long run pace, but I felt pretty good afterwards.

During this run we ran around the reservoir in Central Park which was a first for me.  It was very pretty.  The path around it is the same loose packed small pebbles that were in all of the parks in Paris.

Central Park Reservoir

When I got home hubby and I went to Bareburger for brunch.  Yummy yummy.  They had quinoa hash browns which were quite tasty.

Nom nom nom!

Day 70 (September 6): Bagel run day!  I ran from my apartment to Brooklyn Bagels in Astoria.  The bagels in LIC just plain suck, so I ran the longer way to the bagel place and the short way back.  It was 5.6 miles very easy because I didn't want to overdo it after my speedy (for me) long run.

Week 10 Summary:
Miles: 39.2
Pace: 11:47 min/mile
Stayed on Plan:  Well, I stayed on my getting back on the plan plan so sorta.