Night Running

For a city that never sleeps, Central Park at night is at least in nap mode. Instead of kids yelling and cars honking you hear bike spokes whirring and footsteps clomping. And it is a welcome break.

Wednesday’s are going to be my busiest day of the week for the next long block of time. Here’s what I have on tap:

7:30am – Wake up and do ankle exercises that I have do every morning in bed (a lesson from Ron Warhurst back in my high school days).

7:34am – Brew a pot of coffee and have a bowl of cereal. Check out some really important news sites.

8:00am – Get a call from Gags telling me not to run the first mile of my tempo too hard.

8:30am – Head out the door for my run.

8:41am – Meet Will in Central Park and start up the tempo four minutes later.

8:50:24am – Run the first mile of the tempo too hard. Curse at Will under my breath.

9:06am – Finish up my 3 mile tempo in 16:25, getting the pace right for the rest of it.

10am through 5:30pm – A lot of stuff goes on here, and since it was going to be a really long post if I continued with the minute-by-minute update, I’ll start doing some blocks of time. Here is where I make sure to eat some bfast, get in an ice bath at Columbia, head down to work, do some work in usual Mad Men fashion, and then take the god forsaken rush hour train back up town.

6:00pm – Out the door for my evening hill session. It is really nice running in Central at night because it is just a little bit calmer. You can hear your own breathing, can look up at the glowing buildings, and actually relax while running. You can get this in Central at other parts of the day, but it is a lot easier at night.

7:00pm – Get back from the hills (8x100 meters) and make myself some dinner. Today it was burritos. *it most likely will be burritos every Wednesday, considering how much I love burritos.

8:00pm – Let my friend, Krisch, in because he locked himself out of his apartment. Keep him company while watching “Man V. Food” (one of the influences for “Will Run For Food”).

9:00pm – Shower time.

9:30pm – write a runLBP post.

10:00pm – Bedtime. Boom.

And there’s a day in the life. For one of the first times in my life I am really busy, and its actually pretty nice. But it’s 9:58 as I’m finishing up, and as you can see from the schedule, 2 minutes ‘til bedtime. Let’s Go (to sleep)!

The Perks of Being a Distance Runner

The above picture was taken circa 1991, making me 6 years old and rocking my first 5k road race. It also makes my dad about 19 years younger and in his prime for the East Lansing Road Racing Circuit. Apparently I didn’t really run much of that race instead stopping to check out all the cool houses we were running by. Not a great thing to do in a cold Michigan winter…my dad remembers being freezing.

Sadly, this was just the beginning of me running races. I now have done hundreds to thousands more, and they have been both good and bad. And I may complain every once in a while about having to go for a morning run or pouring out 14 miles on a Sunday instead of sleeping in, but there are also some major perks to being a distance runner. Take the Travel Channel for instance.

I love food and cooking shows. If you haven’t noticed, my Will Run For Food idea was based on Man V. Food on the Travel Channel. The Food Network and Top Chef are also two of my favorites.

I was watching something along the lines of best places to pig out in America on Wednesday night when my roommate Krisch walked in. They were at a burger joint. One of the burgers had a nice slice of cream cheese placed on it. It looked divine. Krisch agreed. He agreed so much that he walked not only to 5 Guys (a great burger place in DC) but also the grocery store so that he could grab a slab of cream cheese. He then proceeded to imitate the tv burger as best he could and then made it disappear with ease.

“But what does this have to do with being a runner?” You may ask.

Well it has everything to do with being a runner. Krisch runs at least 80 miles a week, and the boy was craving a burger with cream cheese that night. Yeah he probably added 1500 extra calories into his diet that day, but a runner gets to binge every once in a while. In fact, while he was walking to the door I polished off 16 Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies…and they were delicious. So if you ever hear me complaining about something to do with running, tell me to go eat a burger and I’ll remember that I can. I probably will eat a REESES instead (yeah, the nickname is about to come back).
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Training went really well last week. I put in 71 miles with some good workouts that were a little on the longer side (1k,2k,3k,1600??) and a 14 mile long run with some tempo stuff worked in there. We’re figuring out my outdoor schedule but it looks like I’m going to be making some trips out to Cali for some fast racing. I can’t wait. As always…LET’S GO!

Will Run For Food - Mike Krisch Edition

NCAA Cross Country Nationals were today. I never had any experience with this event because every one of my cross country seasons were gross under-achievements. I love XC, it is the only place where there is just one champion, and it is done in the most true way, through a race.

This edition of runLBP is a straight dedication to Andrew Bumbalough and Mike Krisch for winning All-American certificates with their 8th and 32nd place finishes at the NCAA meet. Since Krisch is my current roommate, he gets even more of a shout out.

What follows is the video I directed, produced, edited and starred in for a journalism class I took last spring. It features myself, and my two current roommates Mike Krisch and Alex Mason. The first couple of minutes are boring, but once the eating contest starts, things start getting pretty exciting. Enjoy…