I feel like everything that happened this week conspired against me to keep me from finishing my NYC race report. It wasn’t a terrible week, just busy.
For the first time in what seems like years, I have a cold. Mostly it’s just a runny nose, although occasionally I get enough phlegm for a good cough. It’s still pretty mild, though, more annoying than anything else. Most importantly, it hasn’t affected my running.
Smoke from the wildfires in the North Carolina mountains made it to Charlotte this week. I noticed a big difference in my run on Tuesday. It even forced me to go with the treadmill on Wednesday.
I have a new pair of shoes, one last pair of Brooks Adrenaline 16s. Getting them was kind of a hassle, but I got a great deal. Since the 17s are out, they were marked down to $90, and then I got a $25 store credit on top of that. $65 for a good pair of running shoes is really cheap. Also, I learned something interesting. The full name of the shoe is the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 16. (I already knew that part.) I normally leave out the GTS part, because as far as I know, there aren’t any other Adrenaline models. Well, this week I found out that GTS stands for “go-to shoe.” Considering Adrenalines are the only shoes I’ve ever worn, I can’t argue with that.
Weight Check: 162.7, up 1.8 pounds from last week. Yeah, that wasn’t good. I was really tired this week, possibly due to my cold, and work was busy, so I drank a lot of Mountain Dew. Yesterday, I went to two parties(!), and over the course of the day drank 3 beers and did a whole lot of grazing. So, not a good week. And this was the week before Thanksgiving. Well, I’m still not overweight, so there’s that.
| Day | Total Miles |
|---|---|
| Monday | 5.26 |
| Tuesday | 5.01 |
| Wednesday | 4.81 |
| Friday | 3.17 |
| Saturday | 8.76 |
Total: 27.01 miles
Well, that was an interesting way to get to 27.01 miles. I was kind of hoping to get closer to 30, but all things considered, it’s a pretty good set of runs.
Monday, I tried to remember my old 5 mile route through my neighborhood that still took me up the really big hill. I didn’t quite have it right, but I ended up erring on the side of longer distance, so it’s OK. That big hill was kind of tough, since I hadn’t really run up any big hills since New York City. Still, I ran pretty well overall.
Tuesday I learned that air quality alerts are no joke. I was really struggling, and ended up 20 seconds per mile slower than Monday, even though my legs felt OK. I ended up staying in the flatter parts of my neighborhood, and managed to get up to 5 miles.
Wednesday, I went to where the air is clean and the running is mentally excruciating: the Y. I ran pretty well, even if I didn’t enjoy it much.
So remember when I said my new shoes were a hassle to get? Well, I went out to buy them on Tuesday, but they were out of stock. They checked with their other stores, and found a pair in my size. They said they’d get it in to the University store later in the week, and they’d call me when it came in. It wasn’t there on Wednesday. Not a big deal. It wasn’t there on Thursday. This was a bigger deal. It meant I’d have to go to the office on Friday (which I almost never do, I just work from home normally). I still wanted to stay inside, so I figured I could get up at 5, go over to the Y, and get back around 7, I could get to the office by 9. The problem is that I didn’t change my alarm, which I had set for 6:30 on Thursday since it was a rest day. When my alarm went off, I realized I’d have to do a very abbreviated neighborhood run. On the plus side, I got out there at 6:38, and it never takes me just 8 minutes to get from bed to running, so there’s that. The run itself went better than I expected. I think the air quality had improved very slightly over the course of the week, although it still wasn’t great.
Saturday I got up and drove up to Freedom Park. I figured if I ran to 7th Street and back, that would be just over 4 miles, and then to Park Road Shopping Center and back would also be just over 4 miles. So, 8 miles. I managed to add a little bit to my run to get it up to 8.76. I could have gone a little longer, but I needed to get home and cleaned up before the day’s two parties. Also, on the last .76, I ran at an 8:59(!) pace, so I’d say that qualifies as a strong finish.
Next week, I’m posting my NYC recap on Monday, running the Southpark Turkey Trot 8K on Thursday, preparing for my parents to visit, and I’ll try to fit in a few other runs. We’ll see how it goes.