Back to normal, sort of.

Now that Utpal is back from his travels I had company for the Sunday run. I think not racing yesterday paid off, because I felt a lot better this morning. However it did feel colder than I thought it would, at least at the beginning of the run. We went out to Flushing Meadow park. With Utpal suffering the effects of jet lag it was decided to just run around the lake and back. I am quite happy with the run and actually felt fresh at the end of it.

Oh yeah! I did not run the 2 mile race yesterday. My throat was still bothering me and I thought that the best option was to be cautious and not wipe myself out 2 weeks before the 50k. I just jogged a couple of miles.

Running Frog

I woke up this morning with a deep croaky voice, we often use the expression, "I have a frog in my throat". So when I went out for my run this afternoon, I was taking the frog out for a run, so to speak.

Old creaky legs

It was a nice morning, with the temperature already at 40F when I left the house at 10 to 7 .I felt kind of sore and my left hamstring and knee seemed to be telling me something was a little tight. When I got out to Flushing Meadow Park, things were a bit different from last week, though there were still a few icy patches. Once again I went out to Shea stadium and Citi field. My run of 2 hours felt good, but still a little sore at the end.

Official race starter

Due to a lack of officials, I was the starter for this mornings 2 mile race.The other official stayed at the finish line. I was given his watch, which I started the race with and handed it to him as we ran by on the first loop. There were only 6 official starters, not sure why this was, as the weather was much better than in previous weeks. For some reason I was feeling a little sore when I left my house for the race, so I did a little extra warming up before the race.I finished 4th with a time of 15:52, yet another improvement on the previous week. So slowly, slowly I am getting some speed back.

In Perspective

I have been sorting through some of my things and the other day I found my diary from 2001. Yesterday I sat down and looked at a few pages, I was interested to see what I wrote on September 11. This is what I wrote;" The day started out so normally. When the flight got to within 3 1/2 hours of New York, we were told that terrorists had attacked. The plane had to go back to Vienna. We would land in London first.The airspace over London was closed, so we landed in Manchester. Then finally on to Vienna, arriving back 13 hours after we left".
My final note was; My running streak ended today
4 years 6 months 8 days.
I don't know why but that is what I wanted to post today.

On fresh snow

It started snowing around 9am, so by the time I had come home from work and settled a few things, there was maybe 3 inches of snow on the ground. Probably because the temperature as stayed at 30 F all day, the roads have stayed clear for the most part. For some reason as I ran with fresh snow all around me and more blowing in the wind. It reminded me of a run I had at the beginning of the year in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Shea Stadium says goodbye

I think the last time I ran out to Shea Stadium was in November with Utpal. Today was a good time to go out there again. The temperature was just 1or 2 degrees below freezing when I started out and by the time I finished 1 or 2 above. As you can see from the photo about 3/4 of it has gone. The lake in flushing meadow was almost completely frozen. I ran for 2 hours, so I am quite happy with my run. I have about 3 weeks of training before the 50k race, which is also training for the 6 day race in April.