Early Morning City Street Running

Good morning – happy Hump Day! It’s 8 a.m. and I am already done with my run for the day – hooray! All my talk of being a “real winter runner” yesterday must have inspired me this morning. I was supposed to go for a 3-4 mile run with a fellow blogger (who shall remain nameless…but you should check out her blog 🙂 ), but she had to bow out of our run. So it was 5:30 a.m., I was awake and semi-dressed for a run and my choices were to: a) go back to bed, b) fly around like a maniac and grab all my stuff for the gym, or c) just go running outside.

I chose option c and did so very warily. I had a conversation with another NYC blogger last week about the potential perils of running on the streets of NYC during the early-morning hours before sunrise. I told her I’d never done it and was too chicken to ever attempt it. Apparently, I lied. I found some sort of courage this morning, or maybe it was just sheer desperation, but I went.

The Verdict: It wasn’t bad at all! (I swear Mom!!) Within the first 5 minutes of hitting the streets I encountered another female runner – with headphones (I was sans headphones and on constant alert). I ran down York Avenue to 61st Street and then started heading West and back up. I hit 79th street while still on 1st and then went all the way over to 5th Avenue and turned around and headed home. I was able to squeeze in just over 4 miles. Here are my stats:

Mile 1 – 8:24
Mile 2 – 8:35
Mile 3 – 9:00
Mile 4 – 9:26
.11 – 1:46
Total mileage: 4.11 in 37:14

Mile 4 was very slow because I waited for two red lights – grrr. Anyway – my entire run was very well-lit, and surprisingly, there were more people out at that hour than I expected. I saw doctors/nurses heading to work in their scrubs, a total of 3 other runners, doormen (one who was very nice and warned me about ice), store owners opening up, and plenty of cars driving around. I didn’t feel at all nervous or in danger. I will definitely entertain the idea of running the streets again in the future (and I always welcome running buddies of course!). But March 14th and Daylight Savings also can’t come soon enough!

If you live in NYC – have you ever run the street before sunrise? Or if you live elsewhere – how safe do you feel during early-morning, pre-sun runs? What precautions do you take?

As promised, I do have photos once again! Here is my recap of yesterday’s eats:

Breakfast was a delicious bowl of oats with banana and peanut butter.

During my lunch break I ran out to Borders and picked up Food Rules by Michael Pollan and a salad. I’m already halfway through the book. A  lot of it is common sense stuff, but I’m still glad I bought it. I used my 33% off coupon (for Borders Rewards members that coupon is good until the 18th), so it was a good deal. Borders also had a Buy One Get One Half Off Section and both of Pollan’s other books: The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food were on the table (I went to the Borders down near Wall Street).  So my lunch looked like this:

Sorry for the blurriness. My afternoon snacks were some Brown Cow Greek Yogurt (decently priced at $1.09 upstate) and an apple.

After work yesterday I headed to the gym. I had a 5-mile run scheduled on my training plan, but I figured since I’d be running the next morning, I would only do 4 miles (plus then no guilt about running for more than 30 minutes). I finished up 4 miles in 32:18 minutes, did some ab work, some arm work and headed home.

Both my mom and Hubby’s mom sent leftovers home with us this weekend, so we are set for a bit when it comes to dinner. I had some of the leftovers (wheat pasta, chicken, tomato sauce) and added in some broccoli to pump up the veggie quotient. I think Pollan’s mantra of “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” was in the back of my mind.

However, that didn’t stop me from having two of these bad boys for dessert.

I headed to bed early last night, but managed to sleep terribly the whole night. I’m sure I will crash later today.

And I totally forgot that today is Ash Wednesday. At least my run is done so I can head to our church after work for the 6 p.m. mass.

And lastly, an interesting health article in the news:

As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends – I definitely agree that there is a connection between playing high school sports and the level of confidence and/or success a girl (or anyone for that matter) has.  What do you think?

Have a great day all!