Traveling almost half of the year means that it is difficult to race often enough to qualify for the New York Marathon by running in nine of the NYRR club "marathon qualifier" races. So, I've been trying not to miss any, no matter the hour (5:30 am for the NYRR 50th Anniversary Race) or too hot, like today. And, since I had missed out running in a recent qualifier just because I don't happen to have a second X chromosome, I wasn't going to let being straight keep me from racing in today's qualifier, the New York Gay Pride Run.
It was over thirty degrees at race time and under the hot sun and this was a tough damn run. I'm still not getting the speed and hope that by cutting back on my bike riding my legs with morph back into runners' legs in time for the marathon in November. So, today's splits were:
HR Average
Speed km/h
Time
Mile 1
146
11.7
8:32.9
Mile 2
154
11.9
8:31.4
Mile 3
163
11.7
8:31.3
Mile 4
170
11.1
8:49.9
Mile 5
173
11.6
8:29.3
Total
161
11.6
42:53.8
Good heart rate acceleration, but no kick. Just too damn hot.
After the race, I was off to the races. In eleven days I’ll be in Germany (for the European Cup final), Qatar, Johannesburg, Bangkok and Seoul. Faster than I ran in the park this morning. First leg this afternoon from LGA to IAD and then tonight on to FRA.
George Carlin wrote and performed his own obituary, Modern Man, in which he summed himself up in about three and half minutes.
"I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!
I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive.
Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!
I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers.
I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.
But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.
I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn.
I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity.
I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!"
The last time I saw George was at the Beacon Theatre about two years ago, on the dress rehearsal night before his live HBO special. He was my favorite comedian from his early performances on the Mike Douglas and Ed Sullivan shows until his death today.
Click on the YouTube video and spend a few minutes with this incredible guy, whose life-force and acerbic wit were always a personal inspiration.
Nearing the end of Saturday's ride from Manhattan to Montauk, I pulled the camera out of my jersey for a shot of the final descent into town and accidentally snapped this shot. One grimy, sweaty, muscled and extremely tired leg, working the big ring and zipping along on the Griffen. This was the knee that had the arthroscopic surgery eight months ago, pedaling without pain for 237 km.
This is the ride to Montauk on the longest day of the year, which was true in so many ways. The sun was working overtime on Saturday, coming up as I was crossing the Williamsburg Bridge leaving Manhattan before 0600 and, without a cloud to hide behind, was a constant companion till the end of Solstice Saturday. This was also the longest distance I had ever ridden in one day (237 km). And, since this ride took almost nine hours to complete, there were a couple of hours in the afternoon, after being on the bike for six or seven hours, that were very, very long hours. It was a long damn day!
I left home just after five o'clock in the morning, rode to Penn Station with my change of clothes and computer in a gear bag, which I threw in the truck for the ride to the finish. After getting my wrist and bike tags, I was off down 34th Street with about a hundred other riders who were doing the whole enchilada... the entire 145 mile ride. Most of the other cyclists at Penn Stationwere having their bikes taken to spots out along Long Island where they would pick them up after getting off the train. We were the purists: no trains, no shortcuts, just keep pedaling east until you run out of road.
Just after this rest stop (above), with about 130 km to go, the wonderful people at Blue Point Brewery had set up some kegs at their brewery in Patchogue. My feeling has always been the glycohol and glycogen are only a happy molecule different and a beer or some wine on a long ride goes straight to the muscles, screaming for energy in whatever form they can get it. So, beer is just sugar with benefits! I had two beers with some of the other maniacs hammering the whole enchilada and felt pretty damn good at 11 in the morning and 100 km done.
However, by this point in the ride, after far too many hours in the saddle, I was really exhausted, baked in the 34 degree heat, dehydrated despite the beer and sports drinks (one bottle of bright red Gatorade each hour since dawn) and quite ready for a shower and a meal.
The numbers: 138 bpm average for the first 160 km and then I took it a bit easier for the last 80 km and kept it under 130. Total calories: 8492. Moving average 26 km/h and total moving time was 9:06 including the ride over to Penn Station.
Having learned my lesson from the Cape Argus classic, where I re-hydrated with beer and not enough food, I headed for the food line first and then drowned hamburgers and chicken breast sandwiches with copious amounts of free Blue Point Brewery Oatmeal Stout and some delicious IPO. But, by about four thirty, I was toasted and rode over to my room at the Solé Beach Motel for an overdue shower and four hours of comatose sleep. At nine o'clock I woke up, hungry again and went out for pizza and beer, feeling fairly springy despite having propelled myself the length of Long Island that day.
The next day I went out for coffee, pancakes, home fries, toast and then ordered an omelet just because I was still hungry. My legs were not sore, but walking a few miles down the beach in bare feet was really a great way to get the byproducts of aerobic overkill moving out of the muscles and into the kidneys.
There were several other riders who had not taken the buses and trains back the day before and the LIRR was packed with bikes. By six o'clock I was back at Penn Station and riding home in the pouring rain.
Glen Goldstein, who puts these and several other large cycling events together, really does a great job. His company is Bicycle Shows US and he is also responsible for the Farm Ride and the North Fork Century. The motto for his rides is simple: Ride Hard Have Fun Don't Act Like a Jerk
I had a spectacular day on Saturday, but evidently some people did not. Ride organizers do not have superhuman abilities and sometimes, well, shit happens. Trucks break down, trains don't go on schedule and people fall over while riding two wheeled vehicles. My day was the purists' day, just riding from Manhattan to Montauk without relying on the LIRR or trucks to get my bicycle from Penn Station to a short-cut to the finish. Most people can adapt, adjust and cope with the glitches, since they realize that nobody is purposely delaying their ride. But there are others who just like to bitch and gripe. Glen should add one more line, "No Whining!"
Now, Montauk 145 miles + two days and I'm going to be sloth-like, sitting in my recliner computer chair (web cam shot), trying to move as little as possible. Sensible plan.
It was hot and humid in Central Park this morning for the WABC Father's Day Race Against Prostate Cancer. Although the temperatures were 23 or 24, the humidity was a hothouse 95% and most of the seven thousand runners were sweating even before the start. Overheating was a real issue, particularly for a sprint distance like five miles, where there isn't time to settle into a comfortable, "grind out the miles" pace and set the rpm at a sustainable level. Today was "redline" from about ten minutes into the race all the way to the finish near Tavern on the Green.
Given the day, I was quite happy with the following stats:
My finish time of 41:29 was much faster than last weeks five miler at 43:23, so the base training and limited speed work is paying off. My strategy is still to keep up the cycling, increase my base mileage, drop about ten kilos over the summer and wait until twelve weeks before the New York Marathon (mid-August) to start doing the fast kilometer repeats and sprint work to build up leg speed for November 2 2008!
This is another of the all time great training rides available by train just outside of New York City. The 6:41 train leaves Grand Central and gets to Ossining around 7:25, in time for the reverse-commute ferry ride across the Hudson to Haverstraw. So, you not only get a lovely ride along the river, but a trip out across the water to the not-so-populated area to the east of Harriman State Park.
For today's ride, I headed through familiar territory up along Seven Lakes Drive in the State Park, descending down to the river again through Bear Mountain State Park and across the bridge and through Putnam County and into Clarence Fahnestock State Park. From there I turned south through Putnam Valley and almost due south to Croton-on-Hudson.
The day was cool, overcast and drippy for the first half of the ride, turning quite pleasant and certainly not the heat we are expecting over the next few days, when temperatures should climb into the upper thirties. The totals for the day were about 115 km (my GPS didn't start recording for the first 13 km as it was "calculating" the route) in a little less than five hours of riding, climbing 1700 meters and burning about 4800 calories.
After leaving Haverstraw, this ride does not go through another town for more than 100 km and sticks mostly to back roads and roads through state parks. It is the lowest car-per-hour route that is close to Manhattan for this distance. This five hour loop ends in Croton-Harmon in time to catch the 1:27 train back Manhattan.
Wednesday morning at 5:30 am the New York Road Runners Club celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a five-mile run in Central Park. There were about 5,000 runners there, before dawn, huddled under trees and crowded into the Tavern on the Green's tent trying to get out of a torrential but not terribly cold rain. No one griped, no one kvetched and we all got into the starting pens and ran hard through the puddles around the park.
The picture (above) is from the NYRR website and I'm sitting about two thousand runners back, still waiting to start moving well after the race started.
Mile 1: 11.2 Km/h (9:05) Mile 2: 11.2 Km/h (9:04) Mile 3: 11.6 Km/h (8:49) Mile 4: 11.9 Km/h (8:33) Mile 5: 12.9 Km/h (7:51)
By 6:30 am, we were done.. race was over. I unchained my bike and rode home, sopping wet as the city was still waking up. How crazy is Manhattan? It is only NY where you can get 5,000 people to gather before the sun comes up ... and then everyone scatters, back into their workaday lives, just as quickly as they all came together. A lovely June morning in Manhattan!
Several months ago, in preparation to run in the New York Marathon on 2 November 2008, I went online to register for the New York Road Runners club 2008 NYC Half-Marathon, to be held on 27 July. This is a perfect race for me this season, since it starts just two miles from our apartment, the family can come over to cheer and the route is on familiar ground since I'm in Central Park a couple of times a week to train.
I've been a member of the New York Road Runners Club since we moved to Manhattan fourteen years ago and this year I've participated in four local club races getting prepared for my first marathon in two years. So, I was pretty excited and have been training with the expectation that I would be ready on 27 July to run 41 kilometers.
However, this year the NYRRC decided to hold a lottery to determine who could run in the race. From what I have gathered, there are about 17,000 places, of which 3,000 are given out to runners who qualified based on their past (fast) times. There are 3,000 slots that are set aside for runners who raise money for charity or come to NY through travel partners and there are slots for the sponsors (Nike and others.) Then there are the 18,000 runners who had to apply for the 11,000 slots left over in the lottery. I was not one of the lucky runners to be selected in the random lottery.
Last Name
First Name
Entry Number
Accepted?
Age
City
Province
Country of Residency
Team
Goree
Langston
248730
NO
M55
New York
United States
NYRRC says that the only way to be fair is to have this as a totally random lottery, where there is no favoritism.
But wait a minute! Randomness is something that falling cranes use to choose their victims. It is uninformed and treats everyone as equal, which we really aren't. In a day when computers can be programmed to weigh values in a database and statisticians in a half dozen of the social sciences can figure out ways to set it up computers to make informed choices, we deserve better than randomness. The NYRRC should have something better than a selection system that will consider some guy who applies over the Internet from Des Moines as an equal applicant to someone, like myself, who is a member of the host running club, pays taxes in New York City where the club uses city resources for its race and who just has to walk over from home to the start of the race. No, I'm not an equal applicant for this race and I shouldn't be treated by my own running club as such!
But what really got me upset was the following message that came with my rejection email:
Runners who live in the U.S., but outside New York City, may be eligible for guaranteed entry by purchasing a "Half-Marathon Package".
So, not only did that guy from Des Moines get a shot in the lottery that may have knocked me out of the race, but he can buy his way into the race if he didn't make it through a lottery slot by purchasing a travel package.
First of all, there should be NO slots available to non-NYRRC members in the lottery until all of the resident members are accommodated. Secondly, there should be no slots for sale to non-NYRRC members until all resident members are given slots.
When I wrote to the NYRRC to complain, I got back a response that:
Our dilemma – how do we please everyone ?
The fact - you can’t
No, but you can begin by pleasing your neighbors, since we all live and play here in New York. As members of the club and local runners, we deserve better treatment.
Once or twice a week, when the weather is better than 5 degrees, I head out of town on weekdays to ride in the morning before starting work a little late (actually,I get in an hour or two handling stuff in Europe before 6:00 am, so the day is broken up a bit.) But, finishing up the workout and getting back to the city is always a challenge.
However, there is the perfect post-workout train, providing the best ride back into New York City along the Hudson River each morning. The Metro-North 848 leaves Peakskill at 10:12 and then pulls out of Croton-Harmon Station at 10:27 before speeding non-stop all the way to Manhattan, arriving at 11:17, saving huge amounts of time over the usual express trains that stop in Ossining, Tarrytown, Yonkers, etc. So, I often plan my rides so that I can get in the best training ride that would end in Croton-Harmon or Peakskill just in time to make the 848. The penalty for riding slow and missing the connection is a wait for the next train, which is always going to be slower than the 848. Great training incentive!
Last Thursday's ride didn't work out as planned. At about 54 km with 18 km to go and at 9:45 am, I rode up on a "bridge closed" sign. Usually this means that the road is closed for cars, but bikes can get by. Nope.. this road was closed and I wasn't up for swimming with my bike. For almost ten minutes I tried to find my way past while my GPS beeped at me that I was off course, providing no help finding a way past the obstacle. Those ten minutes were crucial. At 9:55, with just thirty minutes to go, there was no way that I was going to do 18 km, even at full effort. The fall back was the slower train at 10:33, but I pulled into Croton-Harmon station at 10:35 and got tossed into the "time-penalty box" (it is Stanley Cup time of the year) and had to wait for the local train that stopped at every station along the Hudson, half an hour later. Arrghh.
Today's ride was much better! After a ferry ride from the west side of Manhattan up to Edgewater, just south of the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey, I had just over three hours to ride 85 km (including 2100 meters of hills) in order to make the 10:12. No sweat!!
At 9:57, I was sitting on the train platform, non-peak one-way ticket home in hand, lazing in the morning sunshine well ahead of the 10:12. By 11:35 I was home in the shower and at half past noon doing the downward-facing dog in yoga class. Hell of a day. I beat the train!
