February 2nd: My Big Super Bowl Sunday Adventure

It's been a busy weekend, and I'm just getting a chance now to catch up. Saturday was a good strength workout, so I did my long on Sunday -- and it was quite the adventure.

Didn't get to the gym until Saturday afternoon because I was teaching at Rutgers in the morning. I really focused on core stuff, with a little arms thrown in. Oh, and a couple of reps on the leg-press machine just to show off for Jackie -- 400 pound, the entire machine. Running will do that for your legs. I also ran into my friend Jason, one of the people who's been encouraging me along the way.

My running partner is on the disabled list for a little while, so I needed to change up my routine a bit. Because of the great weather -- it was close to 40 degrees by 8:30 -- I wanted to do an outdoor run. But Lily will go absolutely nuts if I walk out the door and go running without her. So Jackie and I agreed that I'd get in the car as if I were going to the gym. Since I had to drive a bit, I decided to go over to the Henry Hudson Trail -- a rail trail not too far from where I live.

Looking out over NJ 35 in Keyport

I don't carry fluids with me when I run, but I was going a distance where I was definitely going to need them. So I came up with what I thought was a pretty clever plan -- I parked about 3 miles from the head of the trail, then ran in that direction so I could double back and get some water at 6 miles.

What didn't my clever plan account for? They don't plow the snow off the Henry Hudson Trail. And though it has melted off in most spots, there's still plenty of patches of it. And it's packed down into ice in a lot of spots. Suprise! You kind of pick your way through, watching for patches of blacktop you can run on, and being really careful where there isn't any. It slows you down a little bit, but not ridiculously.

Bridge out in Union Beach. Fortunately, you can cross on the road to the right

Looking out toward the Raritan Bay in Union Beach

The head of the trail is in Keyport, and 3 miles east is Union Beach -- one of the hardest-hit towns during Sandy. There are still a lot of houses being repaired or rebuilt, more than a year later. But one thing people overlook about Union Beach -- and really the whole Bayshore -- is how beautiful it is. There are a lot of spots along the trail where, if you didn't know better, you'd think you were looking at Chesapeake tidewaters.

East of Union Beach are Keansburg and then North Middletown (a.k.a. East Keansburg). My game plan was to do 13 miles total. MapMyRun told me I was at exactly 6 when I got back to the car for the water. That meant to get to 13, I'd need to go 3.5 in each direction the other way. I decided that since the GPS is sometimes a bit short, and because MMR calls out mile splits (not half miles), I'd turn back at 10. And I actually went a bit past that, but just by a couple hundred yards.

I guess I started to feel a little tired at 8. At the turnaround, I was feeling it a bit more, but it wasn't too bad. Now, if you've done the math, you've figured out that to get back to the car, I'd be going 14, not 13. And when I got to about 11 -- meaning I had about a 5k left -- I was really getting beat. But that's when it's really important to soldier on. You don't want to get to the point where you're going to bonk -- that's bad by itself, and it's also when you are highest risk of injury. But I wasn't at that point, so it was all good. And go figure -- my last two miles were my fastest. I have no idea how that happened.

All in all, I went 14.15 miles in 2:12:25 -- a 9:21 pace. I'm honestly surprised at that. At no point did I try to push the pace, not even in those last few miles when my splits were in the 9:01 range.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that running outdoors is just so much better, easier and more interesting than the treadmill. I suppose that's kind of obvious, but last week, I was dying the second half of the run. Today, I felt really good even though it was my longest run ever. I'm pretty tired now, but that probably has to do with the rest of my day -- Costco, the pet store and Shop-Rite this afternoon. Running outdoors is just better, even when you're tracking through snow and ice. Let's hope for a bit of a thaw in February.

Total miles since starting the blog: 305.9.