Terrier tracks

Saturday morning I ran an easy 6 miles with the club. Pace was 11:18 and it didn't feel great. Due to a real feeling of ennui, of late, I hadn't run a single step since the race last Sunday. It was cold on Saturday morning and I was feeling like I'd rather stay home in bed. But I dragged myself out to the park with every intention of only doing 2 or 3 miles. Forgot my gloves, didn't realize that my new tights were so light and I was ready to turn around and go home. I started with the group, mumbling to myself the whole way that I was going to turn around. Managed to drag myself to the 2 mile mark when I hooked up with another runner and started chatting. Another mile got away from me and I ended up doing 3 miles before we turned around. It didn't feel too bad and I was glad I got out there.

I met Chelly at lunchtime because I had found out about a bike expo going on in New Jersey and was curious to see what was out there. The expo was a bit of a disappointment. I guess these things are more for those who are already seriously into the sport. I don't even own a bicycle and wasn't really planning on buying one. I'm kind of scared of biking and have never ridden in traffic. We puttered around the vendor's booths, picking up some free samples of bars and checking out the cheap gear that was being sold. But it only occupied us for about an hour or so and we had the rest of the afternoon to kill

We decided to drive around New Jersey, with the idea of eating in mind, but really just wandering. We ended up at the mall :-)

Had a sinful meal at Ruby Tuesday's (I ate a chicken sandwich. Pay no attention to the heap of stuff in the bun or the dessert that I just had to have) Then decided to do some window shopping. Well, they had a Nike outlet store. Running gear at discount prices! Because I've been buying tons of cold weather stuff, I held off and only picked up a couple of hats that were marked down to less than half price. I really need to buy some warm weather clothes, since some of the stuff from last season is probably too large now, but that's not what is available in the clearance sales.

Sunday was the refreshment day at the club run, so off I went. Again, I wasn't planning on going too far, since I had done 6 the day before. But our running coordinator announced that he was going to do an easy run outside of the park. That sounded like it might be fun, so I decided to follow him. Now, a number of runners had done the Brooklyn half marathon the day before, so they were planning anything too hard. But their idea of hard and mine differ. We ended up doing just under 6 miles at a 9:48 pace. I didn't feel too bad, amazingly enough. That made 12 miles in two days. Quite a workout. I allowed myself to partake of the spread put out by the club and sampled a little bit of everything there.

I realized from a comment on my last post that I haven't posted a picture of my pup in a while. So here's one of her basking in the sunlight this morning. It's her favorite pasttime, right after eating and obsessing on her rubber ball.

Also, I haven't figured out how to respond to comments off the blog. I'm not sure if I have a setting wrong, but I don't get an e-mail address when people post a comment - it might be meant to be that way, but if anyone more familiar with blogger can tell, I would appreciate it. If anyone was waiting for a response, that is the reason they haven't got one...sorry.

I had to get up at 5am in order to take care of the dog and eat a little breakfast and still have enough time to ride the subway into the city. Fortunately, there was no rain and I was hoping it would hold off until after the race. I had made plans to meet Chelly at the transverse into the park at 7:15. Start time for the race was 8am and the instructions were a little confusing as to exactly where the start and end of the race was going to be. We had bags and stuff to leave at the finish line and it looked like we would have to walk across the park from there to the start. It didn't turn out to be that far, so we had plenty of time to shed jackets and check our bags.

As usual, the start was jam packed and I didn't cross the start line until almost 2 minutes after the gun went off. Once we were moving, I waved bye to Chelly and took off. By now we were getting some rain, but it wasn't too bad. I thought it felt like a wonderful day for a run. I managed to catch some splits: first 1:01 mile - 9:44, next 1:00 mile - 9:06 (wow!), next 1:06 - 9:49 and then, of course, I forgot to stop the watch and caught the last 1:07 mile in 9:47. My official time was 39:17 with a chip time of 37:04. That was the second fastest race pace I've ever run and is my new personal best for the 4 mile distance. I think I impressed myself :-)

I grabbed my camera after I finished and caught Chelly when she was finishing, so here's a few photos -