I had originally intended to post about my firm moving offices at the end of today from our current location in downtown Baltimore to a new high rise in Harbor East. But then I realized that unless you live here, none of that makes any difference. The move only matters for this blog in that it might change how and when I run once winter rolls in later in the year.
Last winter I temporarily moved my running from the early morning to the middle of the day as an experiment to see if that worked better for my schedule. It was OK, but not really much easier than getting up early and braving the cold elements. Part of the reason for that is that running from downtown Baltimore to any of the neighboring areas is a challenge. You're dodging not just traffic, but tourists and pedestrians and the generally unpleasant people who aren't awake yet at 6 AM when I normally run. The traffic signals are also longer downtown, making the run very segmented. All in all, a disappointing experience.
Harbor East (see map below) is much more pedestrian friendly and is not all that far from Canton and Patterson Park, so that's much better than dealing with the Inner Harbor. Once winter really rolls in and running in the cold pre-dawn darkness gets old, I may try mid-day running again and see how it goes. Of course, there is always the challenge of finding an hour in the middle of my day to get out of the office.
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Friday, September 11, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Motor City: Where Public Transit Is Against the Law
Back from our weekend wedding adventure to Detroit and I am ever so happy to be back on the East Coast. Don't get me wrong; I'm not an Eastern snob who thinks that the vast expanse of the country between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is full of hicks and Red state idiots. Not at all, as my wife and her family are from Cincinnati and I have always enjoyed my visits to the middle of the country.
However, I like the tenor of life here in the East and prefer it to the Midwest. And while I only saw a small sliver of the Detroit metro area (I would have liked to have seen downtown Detroit, for example), I can safely say that I like living in a city here I can walk everywhere I need to go or that I can take trains further afield. If you don't on a car in Detroit, you are literally stranded. Everywhere we needed to go this weekend was 30-40 minutes away, which is really FAR for a city dweller such as me. I'm already mad that my walking commute to the office each day will grow by about 10 minutes when e move to our new tower next week.
I did get a run in over the weekend, though. I did a brief 3.5 mile run from our hotel through a neighborhood nearby and ended at a local Starbucks for a 0.5 mile cool down walk back to the hotel. The weather was fantastic for both the wedding and the run: sunny, low humidity and in the mid 70's in the day, high 50's in the mornings.
The run was good and I only needed to stop once to figure out which way I wanted to run. I basically stuck to my MapMyRun.com route and only overshot by a tenth of a mile, finishing at 3.6 miles. Not bad. It was relatively early in the morning (8:00 AM) so car and foot traffic was light and I only saw one other runner. On a Sunday morning in Baltimore, I'll usually see scores of people (mostly down around the Harbor) running or walking but it could have just been I was in a neighborhood that lacked runners. I did run past several vocal dogs ho were not happy to see a runner encroaching on their yards though.
I had meant to get up today and run but I've been dragging all day and ran out of time. So, I'll get up tomorrow and get a few miles under my weekly belt. Unfortunately, it's back to the grind tomorrow and I won't have another holiday break until Thanksgiving since the market's next holiday is Thanksgiving. This is probably the longest drought period for a holiday, sadly.
However, I like the tenor of life here in the East and prefer it to the Midwest. And while I only saw a small sliver of the Detroit metro area (I would have liked to have seen downtown Detroit, for example), I can safely say that I like living in a city here I can walk everywhere I need to go or that I can take trains further afield. If you don't on a car in Detroit, you are literally stranded. Everywhere we needed to go this weekend was 30-40 minutes away, which is really FAR for a city dweller such as me. I'm already mad that my walking commute to the office each day will grow by about 10 minutes when e move to our new tower next week.
I did get a run in over the weekend, though. I did a brief 3.5 mile run from our hotel through a neighborhood nearby and ended at a local Starbucks for a 0.5 mile cool down walk back to the hotel. The weather was fantastic for both the wedding and the run: sunny, low humidity and in the mid 70's in the day, high 50's in the mornings.
The run was good and I only needed to stop once to figure out which way I wanted to run. I basically stuck to my MapMyRun.com route and only overshot by a tenth of a mile, finishing at 3.6 miles. Not bad. It was relatively early in the morning (8:00 AM) so car and foot traffic was light and I only saw one other runner. On a Sunday morning in Baltimore, I'll usually see scores of people (mostly down around the Harbor) running or walking but it could have just been I was in a neighborhood that lacked runners. I did run past several vocal dogs ho were not happy to see a runner encroaching on their yards though.
I had meant to get up today and run but I've been dragging all day and ran out of time. So, I'll get up tomorrow and get a few miles under my weekly belt. Unfortunately, it's back to the grind tomorrow and I won't have another holiday break until Thanksgiving since the market's next holiday is Thanksgiving. This is probably the longest drought period for a holiday, sadly.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thinking On The Run
I've noticed recently that my posts tend to be shapeless in their subject matter. That is, I tend to not have a plan for what I want to post about and end up blathering on and boring even myself. So, I'm going to make a concerted effort to post only when I have something worth writing about and to try some structured posts. By structured, I mean posts with specific topics in mind.
My first stab at this will be a series called "Thinking On the Run" mainly because I didn't want to spend 20 minutes trying to think of a more clever title. I occasionally have interesting (well, I consider them interesting at least) thoughts or small soliloquies with myself about a particular topic. Even though I didn't run this morning, this post is running-inspired, and that's close enough for a first try.
I was walking to work, as I do most mornings when it isn't pouring down rain or so bitter cold it's painful. With the recent spate of fall-like weather, I've seen more people out running in the mornings, although I've yet to see many runners out at 6 AM yet. THey're usually out around 7:30 when I head to the office. Anyway, today was no different. I was walking and saw a young woman running towards me on my side of the street. She passed me by but a few seconds later I heard a guy who must have been across the street behind me call out to her saying something like, "Hey, you enjoyin' yo run, sweetie?" or something like that. I presume she kept on running or maybe didn't even hear him if she was listening to music.
Nonetheless, cat calling women seems to be a past time of lots of guys in Baltimore and with women who are running, it always seems even more foolish/desperate. I'm never sure if those guys think women will stop and talk to them or what...maybe they do, maybe they just want a reaction out of her. I've yet to experience any female runner respond to a cat call, though. It just seems like a complete waste of time because what woman in her right mind would hear a strange guy call after her, stop her workout, turn around, and end up striking up a conversation with him? In Baltimore, no less, where we've had somewhere around 200 homicides this year thus far.
There's also no consideration for how it makes someone feel to know that whenever they go out for a run in their neighborhood they'll likely be accosted at least once. But in Baltimore, it's expected, unfortunately.
I put cat calling a female runner up there with taxi drivers honking their horns at attractive women as they drive by as two of the most non-sensical things that I see routinely in Baltimore. There are others like walking out into traffic no matter what's coming at you (literally daring the cars to hit you), traffic cops refusing to penalize drivers blocking intersections while getting angry at pedestrians crossing at proper times, and taxi drivers who ask you for directions when you get in the cab.
On another note, I found out today that my company will again be sponsoring the Baltimore Running Festival and that I managed to score a sponsor's registration for the 5K. So, I'll get to run the race for free and participate in the festival for the third year in a row. Sweet! In a recession, saving that $45 registration fee is key.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The LSD Run That Wasn't
My Monday is coming to a close, thankfully, and I've put off posting through forgetfulness and business until now. But, I'm here now, and that's what counts, right? Right.
After a so-so work week in terms of my ability to get up and out the door in the mornings for my runs, I was determined to make the weekend worthwhile and I succeeded. Friday, as I last wrote, I totally failed to wake up and instead hit snooze without a tinge of regret. The regret would come later in the day when I felt guilty for not exercising like I was supposed to. At any rate, I then tried to will myself to run after work but the weather was nasty (heavy downpours here in the city) and it just didn't happen. I vowed to get runs in on Saturday and Sunday, with Sunday being 3 miles at a long, slow pace. I feel foolish labeling such a run an LSD run because 3 miles is not distance in the grand scheme of distances, but for now, it'll have to do. I'm determined not to give in to the temptation to try a 5 or 6 miler and get injured like I was back in July. I'd rather feel like I'm not running as far as I think I could and not have any injuries.
That being said, I got up and out the door on Saturday around 9:30 for a quick 2 miles. Nothing special about it, although the humidity was high (it's August in Baltimore so it's been miserable for about a month now.) Sunday I got up and out the door around 10:30 for my run. It was cooler and drier out, so that made the run better. I headed from the apartment south along St. Paul St all the way to the harbor at Pratt before hanging a right and heading back north along Charles St. That's the most difficult part of any route down and back to the harbor because it's a challenging uphill run all the way from Pratt to Mulberry St (I guess maybe half a mile or so). I ran much of the way, which was good, and then hung a left at Mulberry and a right onto Cathedral heading north again before looping back to the apartment.
I wanted to keep my pace reasonable and slow to avoid having to walk too much like last week when the hills of Calvert St killed me. And aside from walking to cross Lombard St and for about 15 seconds farther up the hill, I didn't have to stop. I thought that probably meant that my pace was somewhere around 10:00 or so. On these short runs, I've just been using the stop watch on my Swiss Army watch rather than my Garmin so I don't have the live pace data.
I got back and put my run time and distance into my log on Running Ahead only to find that I was well below 10:00, like more than a minute below. I was shocked because I felt OK after I finished the run and not totally exhausted. So, my LSD run really never materialized, apparently. But that's not a bad thing because it means I'm making progress and that the slow and steady approach is paying dividends gradually.
This week I'm bumping up the weekday run distance to 2.5 miles with a fartlek run planned for tomorrow and Thursday and an easy run on Wednesday. I want to run three days in a row and take Friday off because we're heading to Michigan for a wedding on Friday. Then I can take another crack at actually running an LSD run the morning of the wedding on Saturday and rest for the travel day back to Baltimore on Sunday.
Now I just need to get my ass out of bed tomorrow morning to stay on plan!
After a so-so work week in terms of my ability to get up and out the door in the mornings for my runs, I was determined to make the weekend worthwhile and I succeeded. Friday, as I last wrote, I totally failed to wake up and instead hit snooze without a tinge of regret. The regret would come later in the day when I felt guilty for not exercising like I was supposed to. At any rate, I then tried to will myself to run after work but the weather was nasty (heavy downpours here in the city) and it just didn't happen. I vowed to get runs in on Saturday and Sunday, with Sunday being 3 miles at a long, slow pace. I feel foolish labeling such a run an LSD run because 3 miles is not distance in the grand scheme of distances, but for now, it'll have to do. I'm determined not to give in to the temptation to try a 5 or 6 miler and get injured like I was back in July. I'd rather feel like I'm not running as far as I think I could and not have any injuries.
That being said, I got up and out the door on Saturday around 9:30 for a quick 2 miles. Nothing special about it, although the humidity was high (it's August in Baltimore so it's been miserable for about a month now.) Sunday I got up and out the door around 10:30 for my run. It was cooler and drier out, so that made the run better. I headed from the apartment south along St. Paul St all the way to the harbor at Pratt before hanging a right and heading back north along Charles St. That's the most difficult part of any route down and back to the harbor because it's a challenging uphill run all the way from Pratt to Mulberry St (I guess maybe half a mile or so). I ran much of the way, which was good, and then hung a left at Mulberry and a right onto Cathedral heading north again before looping back to the apartment.
I wanted to keep my pace reasonable and slow to avoid having to walk too much like last week when the hills of Calvert St killed me. And aside from walking to cross Lombard St and for about 15 seconds farther up the hill, I didn't have to stop. I thought that probably meant that my pace was somewhere around 10:00 or so. On these short runs, I've just been using the stop watch on my Swiss Army watch rather than my Garmin so I don't have the live pace data.
I got back and put my run time and distance into my log on Running Ahead only to find that I was well below 10:00, like more than a minute below. I was shocked because I felt OK after I finished the run and not totally exhausted. So, my LSD run really never materialized, apparently. But that's not a bad thing because it means I'm making progress and that the slow and steady approach is paying dividends gradually.
This week I'm bumping up the weekday run distance to 2.5 miles with a fartlek run planned for tomorrow and Thursday and an easy run on Wednesday. I want to run three days in a row and take Friday off because we're heading to Michigan for a wedding on Friday. Then I can take another crack at actually running an LSD run the morning of the wedding on Saturday and rest for the travel day back to Baltimore on Sunday.
Now I just need to get my ass out of bed tomorrow morning to stay on plan!
Friday, August 28, 2009
I'm Only a Morning Person Once I'm Awake
The best time for running during the workweek for me is early in the morning before I head to the office because I'm at work 10 hours a day at least and there is a low probability that I will have the energy to run at 7 PM on a Tuesday after working 10 hours and walking over 2 miles to the office and back. Plus there's nobody else out at 6 AM and no traffic so it's rare that I have to stop at intersections.
But I've also found that it's REALLY tough for me to get out of bed in the morning. Once I'm up, I'm fine and I function just fine. But getting out from under those warm covers is so hard! Especially now as the morning's get darker and our bedroom, thanks to the window AC we just got, remains nice and frigid, it's tough to talk myself into getting up. And then once I oversleep and wake up, I feel bad for wussing out. This is what has happened today, when I was supposed to get 2 miles in before work but slept in instead. So, this evening, barring torrential rains, I plan on doing those 2 miles as punishment to myself.
Next week I think I just need to override my sleepy inner voice that so easily rationalizes missing my workouts. Perhaps my guilt will also help overwhelm the temptation to get an extra hour of sleep.
On another topic, I went ahead and registered for the 2009 Celtic Solstice 5 Miler (yes, this is the 2008 page but they tend to wait until the fall to update the page for some reason.) here in Baltimore. I ran it two years ago in 2007 and loved it. The race was large but not huge (back then it was probably 2,000 runners, maybe fewer) and the weather was, I thought, excellent for a race. It was really cold (like teens or low 20's when it started), but under a crystal clear winter sky and a sun that warmed you up along the way. Plus running in Druid Hill Park is always great, although arguably not always safe. The presence of Baltimore's finest, the early hour and the large crowds helped keep things safe for everyone though. Plus the spread afterwards was great and I would imagine that since the race has become even more popular in the intervening years, it'll be stupendous this year too.
So, I'm registered for my first race in over a year, and I should be in fine form for the 5 mile distance by then. I'm conflicted about running in the Baltimore Running Festival in October, as the 5K is rather pricey. But I've run in the last two (5K in '07 and half marathon in '08) and would like to continue the tradition. I'm definitely running the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race, though. I love doing turkey trots because they make the feasting later in the day a little less of a caloric Armageddon. Plus this is the 100th running of the race and as a former History major, I can't pass up historical events, no matter how inconsequential. It's also an affordable race at just $25.
So, we'll see how much racing I get done this fall. Probably not much since I'm taking my time rebuilding my mileage. But the main focus is more long-term with the hope of doing another half marathon next spring or fall, depending on how things go.
Now I just need to get out of bed in the morning to actually train and I'll be all set!
But I've also found that it's REALLY tough for me to get out of bed in the morning. Once I'm up, I'm fine and I function just fine. But getting out from under those warm covers is so hard! Especially now as the morning's get darker and our bedroom, thanks to the window AC we just got, remains nice and frigid, it's tough to talk myself into getting up. And then once I oversleep and wake up, I feel bad for wussing out. This is what has happened today, when I was supposed to get 2 miles in before work but slept in instead. So, this evening, barring torrential rains, I plan on doing those 2 miles as punishment to myself.
Next week I think I just need to override my sleepy inner voice that so easily rationalizes missing my workouts. Perhaps my guilt will also help overwhelm the temptation to get an extra hour of sleep.
On another topic, I went ahead and registered for the 2009 Celtic Solstice 5 Miler (yes, this is the 2008 page but they tend to wait until the fall to update the page for some reason.) here in Baltimore. I ran it two years ago in 2007 and loved it. The race was large but not huge (back then it was probably 2,000 runners, maybe fewer) and the weather was, I thought, excellent for a race. It was really cold (like teens or low 20's when it started), but under a crystal clear winter sky and a sun that warmed you up along the way. Plus running in Druid Hill Park is always great, although arguably not always safe. The presence of Baltimore's finest, the early hour and the large crowds helped keep things safe for everyone though. Plus the spread afterwards was great and I would imagine that since the race has become even more popular in the intervening years, it'll be stupendous this year too.
So, I'm registered for my first race in over a year, and I should be in fine form for the 5 mile distance by then. I'm conflicted about running in the Baltimore Running Festival in October, as the 5K is rather pricey. But I've run in the last two (5K in '07 and half marathon in '08) and would like to continue the tradition. I'm definitely running the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race, though. I love doing turkey trots because they make the feasting later in the day a little less of a caloric Armageddon. Plus this is the 100th running of the race and as a former History major, I can't pass up historical events, no matter how inconsequential. It's also an affordable race at just $25.
So, we'll see how much racing I get done this fall. Probably not much since I'm taking my time rebuilding my mileage. But the main focus is more long-term with the hope of doing another half marathon next spring or fall, depending on how things go.
Now I just need to get out of bed in the morning to actually train and I'll be all set!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Not Posting Is Not the Same as Not Running
I forgot I had a post saved in my draft bin, which matches with my overall forgetting to post regularly since coming back from South Carolina. I need to get the pictures we took uploaded and posted as well...that might be a project for Saturday afternoon since Annie is in New York all day Saturday.
Anyway, I have been relatively consistent (relative to the past six months, say) in my running and have also been good about running slower and shorter to allow my body time to adjust. I've had some good runs these last few days, which I'm pleased about. The two mile short course I've laid out has some decent hills built into it along the way but is also flat or downhill enough to allow me to catch my breath, provided I run at the right pace and don't flame out (As I did on Saturday morning's run in the 85 degree humidity.)
Monday I was unable to rouse myself from bed at 6 and couldn't run in the morning so I forced myself to leave work on time at 6 PM to get home and get those two miles in around 7. It was a good run, but I don't like running in the afternoon/evening. While it's more humid in the mornings usually, it's just too hot in the evening still to run comfortably. But I got the miles in and they weren't junk, so I was happy with that.
Wednesday I got up a little late (6:30) and was out the door by 6:45. I just accepted that I'd be a little late for work, but nobody really cares, thankfully, so long as you get your work done and aren't coming in late everyday. The run was solid and I felt great afterward; like I could run another 3-4 miles. That's the feeling I'm going for on these initial weeks, so that was great. I was at work by 8:30, so no harm no foul.
Tomorrow I'll get up on time so I have time to run and then cool down properly. Then on Saturday I'll bump up to 3 miles and see how I feel. If that goes well, Monday I'll start increasing the mileage with a goal of eventually getting back to my pre-hiatus distance of 5 miles on the weekday mornings.
Anyway, I have been relatively consistent (relative to the past six months, say) in my running and have also been good about running slower and shorter to allow my body time to adjust. I've had some good runs these last few days, which I'm pleased about. The two mile short course I've laid out has some decent hills built into it along the way but is also flat or downhill enough to allow me to catch my breath, provided I run at the right pace and don't flame out (As I did on Saturday morning's run in the 85 degree humidity.)
Monday I was unable to rouse myself from bed at 6 and couldn't run in the morning so I forced myself to leave work on time at 6 PM to get home and get those two miles in around 7. It was a good run, but I don't like running in the afternoon/evening. While it's more humid in the mornings usually, it's just too hot in the evening still to run comfortably. But I got the miles in and they weren't junk, so I was happy with that.
Wednesday I got up a little late (6:30) and was out the door by 6:45. I just accepted that I'd be a little late for work, but nobody really cares, thankfully, so long as you get your work done and aren't coming in late everyday. The run was solid and I felt great afterward; like I could run another 3-4 miles. That's the feeling I'm going for on these initial weeks, so that was great. I was at work by 8:30, so no harm no foul.
Tomorrow I'll get up on time so I have time to run and then cool down properly. Then on Saturday I'll bump up to 3 miles and see how I feel. If that goes well, Monday I'll start increasing the mileage with a goal of eventually getting back to my pre-hiatus distance of 5 miles on the weekday mornings.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Back from Vacation
**Note that this post was supposed to have gone out about a week ago after we got back from vacation but I completely forgot it was sitting in the draft bin so it's now out of date.**
OK, so I was pretty terrible about posting while away on vacation. Oh, and I was pretty terrible about running on vacation as well. FOr the former, I have no excuse other than I was on vacation and only got on my laptop to check my work e-mail and keep the inbox as clean as possible (I get literally somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 e-mails a day, most of it research.)
For the latter, I have a very good excuse: I had no shorts. That's right. I laid out my running shirts I wanted to take several nights in advance of our departure, but I did not pack my shorts or compression shorts because we were going to wash some clothes before we left and I wanted clean shorts. Unfortunately, my wife washed the clothes and then put them away in the drawers, and I totally forgot to pack the shorts. I don't even realize it until Wednesday when we were going to rent bikes and ride through Charleston for the day. I went to find shorts and compression shorts, thinking I was so smart for bringing them along, only to realize that I had packed neither!
Awesome. I had some mesh shorts that worked just fine, but I was unable to run the whole week as a result of not having the right shorts. But my running shirts came in handy on the aforementioned bike ride and to cover up a nasty sunburn I got on the very first day we were on the beach.
OK, so I was pretty terrible about posting while away on vacation. Oh, and I was pretty terrible about running on vacation as well. FOr the former, I have no excuse other than I was on vacation and only got on my laptop to check my work e-mail and keep the inbox as clean as possible (I get literally somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 e-mails a day, most of it research.)
For the latter, I have a very good excuse: I had no shorts. That's right. I laid out my running shirts I wanted to take several nights in advance of our departure, but I did not pack my shorts or compression shorts because we were going to wash some clothes before we left and I wanted clean shorts. Unfortunately, my wife washed the clothes and then put them away in the drawers, and I totally forgot to pack the shorts. I don't even realize it until Wednesday when we were going to rent bikes and ride through Charleston for the day. I went to find shorts and compression shorts, thinking I was so smart for bringing them along, only to realize that I had packed neither!
Awesome. I had some mesh shorts that worked just fine, but I was unable to run the whole week as a result of not having the right shorts. But my running shirts came in handy on the aforementioned bike ride and to cover up a nasty sunburn I got on the very first day we were on the beach.
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