Not A Japan Day Run

Today was supposed to be my 8th NYRR run this year. It was supposed to be a 4-mile run in the Park for Japan Day. Except, I totally forgot about it. In self-defense, I didn't get a handy reminder e-mail from NYRR telling me where and when to pick up my packet, and somehow without that reminder, it just slipped my mind. Oops. There goes $18 down the drain. Plus I'll have to sign up for another race.

Instead, I ended up doing a whole hodge-podge of things. Drew and I went to the gym and decided to go for a swim first. I started out doing freestyle down and breast-stroke back. That way I could watch Drew a little bit and give him some pointers. After a while, he seemed to be doing okay, so I just decided to do some swimming on my own. I think my elbow is almost back to normal now. It definitely still hurts if I try to lock it, but I can stretch it out almost all the way without saying "ouch".

All of that means that swimming seems to be a go for now. I can't even tell you how great it felt to be back in the water and going along at a decent clip. Granted, my times still aren't that great in total, but a lot of that is because I was stopping to chat with Drew and in the beginning I wasn't really testing myself at all. Next time I'll hopefully get in a slightly better swim.

After Drew had reached his tiring point in the pool, we got out and headed down to the weight room. Drew was doing arm stuff, so we did one-armed things. He just did both arms (but separately) and I just did my right arm. I have to say that my right arm was definitely tired by the end of all this. This is what I did:

Right Arm Cable Pulls
15 reps @ 40 lbs / 15 reps @ 45 lbs / 15 reps @ 50 lbs

Seated Row (Right Arm)
10 reps @ 30 lbs / 2 x 10 reps @ 40 lbs

Back Extensions
2 x 20 reps

The cable pulls in the beginning were probably too light for me, but I didn't really feel like overdoing it. I also didn't really feel anything from the back extensions. I felt like I could have done them all day long and still not felt anything. Drew tried to explain that I was supposed to be feeling something in my lower back, but I didn't feel that. He said I could try holding onto some weight to make it harder, but I just wasn't in the mood for all that today.

Truthfully, what I really wanted to do was run. It was so nice outside (okay, it was pretty warm), but when the weather is nice, it just seems like such a waste to be indoors. Drew agreed to go running with me in the Park after some negotiations about how far we would run and how fast we would run. We settled on about a 4-mile course. So, at least I got my run in even if it wasn't how I had originally planned.

We ran along the Bridle Path (for the shade) up to the Reservoir. Once we got there, I said that I was going to continue running along the Bridle Path, but if Drew wanted to do one loop of the Reservoir, that was fine with me. We could just meet up together where we had started from. He said he'd like to the Bridle Path loop around the Reservoir as well, so we both took off at our own speeds. The run itself was fairly uneventful. There is something nice about running by yourself and not having to worry about going too slow for the other person.

When I was making the turn to head back west, the Bridle Path was blocked off, so I had to run along the Reservoir in the wrong direction. Sorry everyone! I'm normally such a stickler for the rules in the Park, so I felt pretty bad breaking them. But, I'm not sure what my other options were, other than extending the run longer, which wasn't really an option for me.

I was definitely getting tired by the time I got back and met Drew. I had also run into our friend, Lisa and then we ran into her again together, so the three of us chatted for a few minutes before we all went off on our runs. Drew and I started running back home. I told him that I wasn't sure I would make it all the way home and I definitely didn't. We ran for about 10 minutes and then I called it quits and we walked the rest of the way home.

I'm a little bummed that running 4 miles was such a hard undertaking. 4 miles used to be a quick and easy little run! I'm realizing that maybe I should have been doing more in the past five weeks than I had been doing, but honestly, at the time, my heart just wasn't in it. I'm sure I'll be paying for that later, but for now, I'm just going to try to rebuild slowly and carefully. Of course, I'm still not technically supposed to be running, so there's that aspect. This was my longest run since the triathlon, so I've got to keep everything in perspective.

Swimming
Time: 28:03
Distance: 720 yards / 0.41 miles
Pace: 68:24/mile
Calories: 158
Maximum HR: 178
Average HR: 128

Weight Lifting
Time: 20:39
Calories: 126
Maximum HR: 162
Average HR: 121

Running
Time: 46:09
Distance: 4.20 miles
Pace: 10:59/mile
Calories: 620
Maximum HR: 202
Average HR: 187