A Great Weekend to Run

It’s Sunday and I didn’t get any  blogging in yesterday. But I did get something else in… a nice run!! I woke up to a light drizzle yesterday, but checked weather.com and it said no “real” rain was in the forecast until later on. Ever since marathon-training, I’m an eat-before-I-run-runner, so I had a multi-grain English muffin with peanut butter and banana before I headed out.

Then I went for my much-needed run. I did probably around 5 miles on the East River Esplanade. I tried to figure out the exact distance on mapmyrun, but the site doesn’t show the esplanade, so it’s hard to estimate. That’s why I really want a Garmin!! I ran what I guess to be 5 miles in 46 minutes, not my fastest, but not my slowest. Then I did some stretching afterwards.

About an hour later I was hungry again, so I had some Greek yogurt with Flax Plus Granola.

The rest of my afternoon consisted of two loads of laundry, a little boob tube and this (yes, I’m STILL reading it):

And I may have napped for 3o minutes by accident. Oh well! Then it was time to eat some food and get ready for my friend Alexondra’s apartment-warming party on the West Side. For dinner I finished up the lettuce and some veggies and fruit in the fridge: lettuce, cheddar cheese, apple, grape tomatoes, cucumber, walnuts, raisins – balsamic vinegar on top.

I’m a bad blogger – I forgot to bring my camera with me to the party! But I can tell you that her apartment is gorgeous – what a great find. And there was some tasty homemade humus which I nibbled on, along with a glass of red wine and 2 beers. Then I called it a night. I knew I wanted to get up and try to run again today.

Today’s weather was even better for a run! Again, I had some breakfast first: oatmeal with pumpkin butter, flax seed and blueberries.

Then I set out for Central Park – it was 60 degrees outside! It’s 1 mile from our apartment to Central Park, so that serves as my warm-up and cool down. If I hit the lights right I can fly there non-stop, which happened this morning and helped set my pace. Here are my times:

1 mile warm-up there: 9:13
6.1 mile CP Loop: 51:30
1 mile cool down home: 8:30

I calculated my average mile time for the loop and I was averaging an 8:26 minute mile! That’s almost exactly where I need to be to qualify for Boston. However, I felt like I was pushing it and was pretty tired after the loop, so I don’t know if I’d be able to sustain that speed for 26.2 miles. It’s something to work on.

I also feel like I tend to run faster in Central Park because there are soo many runners and I’m the kind of runner that doesn’t like to be behind people or too close to other runners, so it seems like I’m constantly focusing on passing the next runner.

Do you have certain running routes that push you to run faster or harder than others? What helps you increase your speed?

After my fantastic run I came home, stretched, showered and had a snack. Chobani Greek peach yogurt with more blueberries, apple, and Flax Plus Granola with Pumpkin. The pumpkin bread is finally gone – sadness!

Murphy also stretched a bit:

Now it’s time for the not fun part of my weekend…CLEANING. Our apartment needs a really good once over. So that is my plan for the remainder of the day. I’m thinking dinner tonight will have to be quick and easy, because I’ll probably be exhausted. Have a nice Sunday!