November 4th: What an Awesome Runners' Weekend!

Lots of stuff to discuss today, most of it good, a lot of it fun and a little bit of it just funny.

Saturday morning, I got out on my long run (well, it was six miles, but that’s OK). My friends were meeting at the park-and-ride to head up to the Rutgers game, which I couldn’t attend because I had a wedding to go to. So I ran out there to meet them, then did some figure-eights in the parking lot while I was waiting for them to get there. By the time they arrived, I’d logged three miles. And since I wouldn’t be able to tailgate with them, I insisted on my own mini-tailgate before heading for home. Ha! I did another three miles back, but I had a little soreness in my inner thigh on the left leg. I could’ve kept going, but I was actually close to my house right then and figured that if it got worse, I’d be running away from home, so I decided to cut it short. 6.25 miles on MapMyRun.

Sunday was incredibly exciting, because we went into Manhattan to watch my brother-in-law Ken run the NYC Marathon. He did awesome. He ran 9:00 miles for most of it, though he did slow down a bit toward the end and finished at about 4:30. And…he was even on TV as he rounded a corner! Rock star! The other cool thing: We were walking up to his apartment (right on First Avenue) just as the men’s leaders were passing by. Wow! Those guys are simply amazing athletes.

Monday was a gym day. Yes, I did core stuff (bosu crunches with a dumbbell and planks), and then mostly arms. I also decided after three rotations to do a fast mile on the treadmill. Started out by cranking it to 8.2 mph, and I lasted about a third of a mile doing that. I dialed back to 6.3 for another third, then 7.2 for the last bit. I did the mile in under 8:00, but I probably could’ve done better had I not started out quite as fast as I did.

Haven’t had a chance to get to a sporting goods store to pick up some cold-weather gear yet, and that’s limiting me a little. But tomorrow morning should be above 40, so I’ll see if I can get a run in.

Total miles since starting the blog: 110.0.