Mileage complete: 29.8
Welcome to week one of training for the upcoming glass slipper challenge! For those of you that haven’t heard of the glass slipper challenge, it is an event hosted by runDisney during their princess half marathon weekend. The challenge consists of running a 10k on Saturday, and a half marathon on Sunday. While I will be training to complete the half marathon distance, my main goal is to improve my 10k time, and hopefully bring it down to under 50 minutes during February’s race.
This week started off with heading to orange theory fitness right from work on Monday, with my trusty NYPD running club gym bag in hand. The class was with coach Sebastian, and it was a power-strength day, with a lot of dumbbells. There were four treadmill blocks and four weight room blocks. The treadmill blocks alternated between standard OTF base/push/all out format and blocks that had us run at an "all out" pace for 30-60 seconds, and then complete an assigned number of weighted squats. For the weight room, we alternated between rowing blocks and weight training. The weight training featured a lot of lunges, and some work with a medicine ball. It was a good class, and I was happy that I made it to class on time – its always a little bit of a gamble when I head right from work to OTF, depending on the days traffic.
Tuesday morning I had planned to get in a few outdoor miles, but it was finals week for Kasey so I didn’t have a running buddy. During daylight hours this wouldn’t have bothered me, but as it is dark out when I leave to run I do not like to go by myself. After work I did get myself to swim class, and the focus was on laps, rather than drills. The set looked like [warm up, 3 - (1x125; 2x75;3x25), 100 recovery (drill-swim-kick-swim), 3 x 200m, 2 x (100 m 15 s rest, 100 m faster), cooldown]. It was a rare night where I actually felt comfortable in the pool, although that seems to be happening more and more lately.
This time of year in New York, we tend to start to see the temperature drop – and Wednesday’s morning run was the first truly freezing run of the season. Kasey and I were both dreading this run as we looked at the weather the night before - the forecast said 20°F with a 20 mph wind. We would be running before sunrise, so we wouldn't even get any heat from the sun. Going out I layered up with two pairs of leggings (one of which was underarmor cold gear), a brooks half zip shell, and a running jacket. Plus, gloves with wind protection and ear warmers. Kasey got to my house right on time, and we got on our way with one goal - beat Jen's pace from the run she has posted to Strava the day before - 10:05 min/mi. Now that Jen is getting faster, it will be fun to compete with her from afar.
The wind was cold, my nose ran the whole run, but we managed to keep a sub-10 pace. Kasey had to get to work earlier than me, so three miles into the run we ran by her house and parted ways. I went for a mile and a half solo before looping back to my house to meet up with Jennie, who wanted to get a little run in since she had the day off. We logged two miles together, with the sun finally coming up. By the time I was through 6.5 miles, my hands were frozen and my legs were raw despite the double layer of tights. It was cold, but I had a good run and am glad that I was able to get out before work. I logged a total of 6.5 miles that morning.
On Wednesday at work I found out that I would need to travel from NY to Philly for the day on Thursday, so I decided to take an OTF class Wednesday night since in knew there would be no time to get a run or workout of anytime in on Thursday – I had to be on a train at 5:18 into Manhattan, followed by a train to Philly, then a whole day working, and a car ride home. By the time I got home Thursday night I was exhausted, and happy that I had done a double Wednesday rather than shoving a run into Thursday.
Friday morning was even colder than Tuesday had been, but with an added complication: it had snowed the day before, and there was ice and snow covering many of the sidewalks and streets in my neighborhood. So, I missed another morning run this week, and added getting a gym membership to my to-do list for the weekend. Originally, I figured I would head to an orange theory class Friday night… but then was able to snag last minute tickets to see “Star wars: the Last Jedi” with Dennis and Emily. I have no regrets.
The weekend was super busy, and flashed by in what felt like two seconds. Jennie and I were signed up for a race on Saturday morning, the NYCRuns “Hot chocolate Classic” 10k. My alarm went off at 6:20 Saturday morning, and I pulled up the NYC runs twitter account to confirm that the race was still happening – remember that snow I mentioned? It was still not melted by Saturday. They had sent out a tweet saying that they would announce the status of the race by 6:30, and at 6:27 they sent out a tweet saying that runners should expect slushy conditions, but that the race would still proceed as planned. Jennie picked me up at 6:50 and we headed to Roosevelt island, where the race was being held. We were both sleepy, but excited about the race – it was supposed to be Jennie’s first 10k, and the race that she would use as proof of time for the Star Wars Dark Side half marathon weekend.
Maybe you noticed that I said this was supposed to be her first 10k. You see, after about 45 minutes of being in the car, I checked my email. In my inbox was an email from NYC runs, saying that the race was being changed into a “fun run,” there would be no race timing, and there would be no official start time – runners could just go as they pleased.
Now, I fully understand that sometimes raced need to be cancelled because of weather. Dangerous conditions are not good for anyone, and runner and volunteer safety should come first. The thing that made me mad here was that the race had cancelled so late, at a time when most runners would already be well on their way to the start line. Also, they had deleted their earlier tweet, apparently preferring to pretend that no such tweet had ever existed. I was super frustrated, and Jennie was super upset. This was supposed to be her first 10k, something that she had been working towards for months. We were only 10 minutes away from the race when we got the email, so Jennie dropped me off at the start area so I could confirm that there would be no timing mats, and collect our race swag. We were originally going to park in a garage, but there was no point in paying for parking if no race was happening. We had already lost out on the registration fees and didn’t want to throw away more money.
I spoke with someone from NYC runs to confirm that there would be no race timing, and then collected our cocoa mugs, race bibs, and bagels. I hopped back into Jennie’s car, and we headed back to Long Island. We decided that instead of running on Roosevelt island, were we were sure to wind up cold and with soggy shoes, we would head to the gym and complete our 6.2 miles on treadmills. When we got home, I changed into shorts and headed to planet fitness, where I signed up for a membership and then met Jennie on a treadmill. I ran a two mile warm-up at a 10 minute pace, and then did 8x400m, with the 400 m repeats at about a 7:50 pace. I was literally dripping with sweat by the time I finished 6.2 miles, as it was HOT in the gym! I headed home from the gym with the intent of getting some Christmas shopping done Saturday, but somehow found myself at Orange theory with Kasey an hour later. And of course, it was a strength day, with a million treadmill inclines. It was a challenging but overall great class, and I was glad that I got some lifting in with all of the days running.
Sunday marked my first double digit run since the NYC Marathon, and I was joined by Kasey and Rachel for parts of the run. Kasey ran 9/10 miles with me, her longest run to date, and Rachel joined us for about 3.5 miles. The weather wasn’t too cold, but there was still some snow at houses that didn’t shovel, and occasional patches of ice. I ran to Kasey’s house to start the run, and we trotted along, looping back to my house at mile 5.5 to meet up with Rachel. As we continued to loop the neighborhood, Kasey almost wiped out as we went over a surprisingly icy driveway, and in perhaps her most graceful move ever, she managed not to wipe out and entirely regained her stride like nothing had even happened. This run was more in the street than most of out runs due to obstructed sidewalks, but I got 10 miles done, despite dad taunting me with warm waffles every time we looped by the house… and yes, I mean this literally. He had made waffles and would wave them out of the kitchen window anytime he saw us running by.
After the run, I of course ate one of these waffles, and then Kasey, Rachel and I met up with Emily and Liz for brunch. It was a good Sunday, and I got some solid miles in this weekend, even though the week didn’t go exactly to plan.
I feel like I am starting to get back into the groove of having a training plan, and now that I have a gym membership setup the weather won’t be able to derail my morning runs so much. But of course, the next week’s weather wasn’t nearly as cold.
Sending warm holiday wishes to everyone, may your holiday runs be Merry and Bright!
