East Coast Enemies

All Black Outfits are a Must for the East Coast Criminals

After struggling through last year’s 5th Avenue Mile, it was great to be a spectator at this year’s event. It also was a somewhat upsetting event as last year I remember sucking air through a 1:55 first half mile and this year they crawled through in a pedestrian 2:02 that I would have been much more capable of running last year at the time. Alas, I wasn’t out there, and was viewing from the sidelines this year knowing that I will be out there next year giving it a go.

Instead, I continued my trend of exercising inside all last week. I get in an hour on the elliptical before work and then 30 minutes to an hour afterwards. Once the orthotics make their way to my antsy feet, I’ll be out and about in the parks of New York and working my mileage up. While I’ve been a 70 per week guy the last two years I’ll be going in 3 week stints at 70-70-60. Working in that “recovery” week will keep me nice and fresh and fast for the upcoming races.

But the big news from last week was the introduction of our yet-unnamed team. Let’sRun had this up on its site:

“Gags (Frank Gagliano) Has Started Another Training Group--From the Reebok Enclave to the Farm Team to OTC and now an unnamed team in New Jersey. It seems like every prominent East Coast grad is in the group, including Erin Donohue, Rob Novak, Julie Culley, LBP and Max Smith.”

I had to like the call out…especially that the running community does recognize my LBP self-proclaimed nickname (although it wasn’t really self proclaimed, they are my initials and all). Here’s a link to the article that Walt Murphy put together with a roster line-up of our team: http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=290&Itemid=115

Practice on Friday had us all thinking of names for the group. Gags liked “No Money Track Club” and the boring—yet most likely actual name—“New York/New Jersey Track Club”…but Delilah had my personal favorite: “East Coast Enemies.” We would wear all black or gold and purple. My Jordan Brand headband wouldn’t seem out of place in the least.

Any suggested team names would be great. As always, Let’s Go!

The Humbling of a Middle Distance Runner

The bikes in Amsterdam...

Yesterday was the first time I had exercised outside in about 3 weeks. It was a crisp, autumn-esque morning in Bath, and I took my Dad’s road bike out for a spin. My foot feels great, but going to avoid running on it until I see the Doc once I get back to New York. Enjoying the fresh air compared to my now accustomed to chlorine tainted oxygen, I approached the corner of Chandler and Clark to take a left and head back towards my Dad’s house to finish up the ride.

At the same time, a biker with some serious gear was taking a right onto Clark coming from the opposite way on Chandler. I beat him to the turn and settled into my 15mph tempo that I had gotten so used to. Then disaster struck.

The dude BLEW by me. I thought about trying to go with him, and picked up the tempo for a moment, but when I looked up he was already 50 meters ahead of me and drifting further away every second. I shook my head in disgust and settled into my tempo trying to avoid looking up to see how terribly I was being beaten.

I need to stick to running.

After getting my ass kicked daily in the pool I was biking my own pace and thought I was doing pretty well until this joker rocked my world. It is a humbling thing to get beaten so soundly so many days a week. Especially to women who are clearly just better swimmers than I am. I tell myself I’m staying in shape, but I am getting antsy to getting out and running so I can show the weekend warriors what’s up. Man it sucks.

The one glimpse of light I’ve seen has been the improvement of my swimming. If I was 10-years-old I would have the Haslett Community Pool records from 25 to 200-meters. Boo. Yah.

Moving up to New York on the 12th…can’t wait. Let’s Go!