Back to the routine.....no more sickness

Ok so last post I put up involved a rough few days for myself, but everything seems to be back in place now. It was weird, I was sick on Wednesday and was cautious on Thursday so I took the day off, ran a steady 9 on Friday feeling very good, and then later that night I started feeling crappy again. So "the sickness" as I call it, hung around for a few days, but it was of a very low intensity after Day 1. Since it started catching up with me on Saturday, I decided to take Saturday's workout nice and steady and not really hammering. It was still a quality workout, but it was in control. Then Sunday was a nice easy long run with Stephen and Bob, but my stomach again was giving me problems and made me feel kinda crappy for most of the run. Half way through I had to take a pit stop, and from there on....MUCH BETTER. That was the deal breaker for that run. Once I stopped and got the bad JUJU out I felt much better. We went for a solid 1 hour 30.

Afterwards we joked around and stretched which was then followed up by a kick ass massage. In the past, all the massages I have ever received from women have really lacked in relation to how deep I want them to go on my legs. So I went to a local woman that many people have recommended from the Westchester Track Club, Julie McElroy, and she was PHENOMENAL. She really did an extensive job on my legs, and it was at a really good intensity. It lasted probably like an hour and 20 min, which consequently made me late to brunch with the boys, but it was well worth being late.

Monday was another day that I ended up taking off becuse it was supposed to be Yankee's Opening Day. We got down there nice and early and were tailgating in the parking garage next to the stadium with the DIEHARDS. Every few minutes there was another chant or cheer going out. Such as PAPI TAKES IT UP THE ASS DOO DAA DOO DAA....and so forth. However since the sky pissed all day the game was postponed till Tuesday night at 7:05pm. This presented a problem for me since my workouts are usually Tuesday night at 6pm. I called Barnow and told him that I would workout with the guys from the Bronx on Wednesday morning at Van Cortlandt, and he was cool with it and told me to enjoy the game, which I did. YANKS won 3-2 over the Blue Jays. It was a kick ass game, and was very happy to be able to attend the last ever opening day at the current Yankee Stadium.

So this morning I woke up and ran a nice workout with Abiyot at Vanny in which he kicked my ass. His workout was a 3 lap loop of the flats, with each loop being 1.5 miles. My workout was do one loop with him, jog till he finished the 2nd loop and then do half of the loop on his 3rd. The first words from Barnow to Abiyot were "don't kill Paul on the first one Abiyot". Thats when you know its gonna be a quality workout. First I will start by saying that Abiyot ran his 4.5 miles in 21:30....yeah so that is pretty dam quick by yourself and with 30 MPH WINDS!!! Ok so we ran the first loop together and it was 7:30 for the 1.5 miles, which was a nice tempo pace, especially dealing with the winds and being in trainers. Then having him HAMMER me on his 3rd loop. It was good to get my ass kicked cause it made we work hard and will make me work harder. After all that we did 2 x 2min at a good clip. He dropped me on the 2nd one....Awesome. Next time I will be in light weight trainers, not those bricks that I wear for everyday runs. All and all a good workout, which was followed up by a nice day at work. First Outdoor race??? In a couple of weeks, not 100% where yet but it will be in a few weeks.

Wed. April 2, 2008
3 mile warmup, 1.5 miles (7:30), 7 min jogging, 4 min hard, 5 min jogging, 2 x 2 min with 2 min jogging in between.

Tues. April 1, 2008 (Yankee game)
58 min @ good clip on Railroad bed Vanny

Mon. March 31, 2008
Off

Sun. March 30, 2008
1 hour 30 min with Stephen and Bob at Rockies
(Stomach still a little messed up)

Sat. March 29, 2008
2.5 mile warmup, 4 x 90 second hills, 5 x 60 second hills, 2.5 mile cooldown
(stomach was bothering me still)

Fri. March 28, 2008
1 hour at a nice pace at the Rockies with James

Thurs. March 27, 2008
Off (Sick yesterday)

Nothing Like Catching Something

So Yesterday morning I woke up for my normal 1 hour morning run with Josh before work. Well I only went about 32 minutes. During the run I started getting more and more tired, my stomach became mroe and more unsettled and just overall started feeling shitty. So I decided to cut it short today and cut my loses, well that wasn't really the start of my loses. The routine on Wednesday mornings usually consist of Josh and I running, going to my house, eating breakfast and showering up for work and leaving by 9:40am. Today we got back to the house a little early from cutting the run short, and as soon as I got home it started hitting me. I began getting real dizzy and nauseated. So natural things happened from that point, which I call puking and the Black Crap of Death. Naming those things should be good enough for visual interpretation. So at about 8:30am I gave Josh my car keys and told him to stay as long as he wanted to because I was going to bed and not to work today. I then went upstairs and slept for a good 6 hours straight. I was not hungry, not thirsty, only a dead weight in my bed. I woke up at like 2:30 and began to move around, and by move around I mean I went down to the basement with gatorade and watched my 40" TV while laying on the couch. So eventually I ate some toast and honey, then some eggs and toast, which was followed later by; you guessed it, toast. By the end of the night I was feeling a lot better and ready to rejoin the world, and by that I mean play video games.

I am not really sure what did that to me yesterday. It could have been a 24 hour bug or some new honey that I had tried the night before. I know your thinking well its only honey. Well this was as raw as honey can get; I mean it still had the pollen and honeycomb on it. So in my opinion it was one or the other. Either way I am feeling better today, but might still take the day off to fully regain my strength.

Other than that running has been going well, and there is an option of racing next Saturday down at Duke for the Duke Invitational. Other than that things are pretty much the same, Easter came and went, Spring is coming quick and racing is gonna be here soon. I have no idea what kind of shape I am in, I feel strong, but not fast yet, which is alright with me at this point. I am not hurt and my body actually feels pretty dam good. Now if I can only sack up and do all my strengthening stuff after work I will be a lot happier. Mileage you can probably figure out if you read the blogs is roughly around 70 miles a week, sometimes a little less if I take a day off or if I am dying with Honey poisioning.

Wed. Mar. 26, 2008
32 minutes easy (Sick)

Tues. Mar. 25, 2008 - 35 degrees and VERY windy
3 mile warmup, (1200, 2x800, 400), 3 mile cooldown
(3:34, 2:13, 2:13, 60)

Mon. Mar. 24, 2008
50 minutes at a steady clip - Bronx River bike path

Sun. Mar. 23, 2008 ( Easter Sunday )
1 hour 15 minutes at Kensico Dam

Sat. Mar. 22, 2008
2.5 mile warmup, 2x2min hill, 5x80sec hill, 3x40sec hill, 3.5 mile cooldown

Fri. Mar. 21, 2008
1 hour 9 minutes with Stephen and James at Rockies, Felt really relaxed and had great run.

Thur. Mar. 20, 2008
1 hour run

Wed. Mar. 19, 2008
1 hour run with Josh - Other side of Rockies, hilly side

Tues. Mar. 18, 2008
3 mile warmup, 1 mile tempo, 4x800, 3 mile cooldown
800's were supposed to be 2:18, 2:18, 2:15, 2:15, with a slower first lap and a quicker 2nd lap, like normal. It was pretty windy and we were a little slower on the first couple. (2:21, 2:20, 2:18, 2:11)

St. Patty's

So yesterday was St. Patty's and it was a grand old time down in the city. The festivities started the night before at Rory Dolan's down on McLean ave in Yonkers, right down the street from my house. There was a band from Dublin that was playing, the Dublin City Ramblers, and a couple of us got together and had great hoolie. The band was all Irish folk music, and they had some great sing along Irish tunes that most people in the bar knew. The only problem for most of the guests was the Irish Brough. The band threw it on thick and most people just smiled and tried to sing along, but all the locals knew what was goin on.

St. Patty's consisted of Matt Longarzo and myself going down to the parade at 10 am and pretty much partying all day. We met up with Matt Ellis at 4pm at his place, played some Halo 3 and POUNDED some beers. Matt Longarzo on the other hand took a small nap and woke up feeling terrible, so that pretty much ended his good times for the rest of the day. After some sweet sweet games we took of for the bars to meet up with the Kev, Chris and Mateo. I was very impressed, Matt Ellis got a girls number, but we shall see how that works out.

I also took yesterday off, it was nice.

Sun. Mar 16, 2008
13 miles with Bill Grogan

Sat. Mar 15, 2008
2.5 mile warm up, 3x1200 4x250 meter hills, 3.5 mile cool down
Ran at the Rockies (3:31, 3:31, 3:21)

Fri. Mar. 14, 2008
9 miles

Thurs. Mar. 13, 2008
Publish Post
9 miles

Wed. Mar. 12, 2008
9 miles with Josh

Tues. Mar. 11, 2008
3 mile warm up, 10x400 w/ 200 meter jog, 3 mile cooldown
(66, 64, 64, 64, 64, 64, 64, 63, 62, 61) Pretty windy out on the track and fairy chilly, but I felt alright.

Mon. Mar. 10, 2008
Off

Sun. Mar. 09, 2008
13 Miles w/ Stephen and Ross

Sat. Mar. 08, 2008
3 mile warmup, 2 x mile, 4 x 400 hill, 4 x 300 hill, 3 mile cool down
(5:00, 4:53)

Not so early today

Fri. Mar. 07, 2008

5pm - 10 miles w/ Steve

Yeah so I woke up at like 6am and was like F this, so I changed the alarm to 8. It was a very good move on my part. I had to go into work a tiny bit early cause of shipments and other crap, so I did, not too happy about it but whatever. Did a bunch of stuff around the store then at 4 I took off to go run at the Rockies with Steve Chemlany. We had a good run at a good clip. Then tonight was Greg Longarzo's bday, so we pulled the typical went over and played video games....I kicked his ASS in the first fight of Fight Night...not so much the next one.

Good Things are happening

The only thing that kind of sucks about the running right now is that I have to do most of my runs at 6:30 am. Not gonna lie, it is tough to get yourself moving for 9 miles when you really don't want to. The few good things that I see about working out that early in the morning are: The run is over for the rest of the day, I can eat what I want for the rest of the day and not worry about an upset stomach during a run, and it keeps me modest on days that I know I should run easy....because its 6:30 in the morning. Like I said in my last post, I have only been running once a day for a little while and I feel that it has really been making me feel better. I also finally got a massage yesterday for the first time in like 5 months...not gonna lie though, $125 IS A LOT OF MONEY. It was good but not $125 good.

Also since the last post, I was able to run at USA Indoor Nationals in an Exhibition race, the DMR. I didn't know what to expect since I have done NO speed work, but I was feeling fairly strong. So the couple of us that went up were myself, James Kopcsky, John Byrnes and Abiyot Endale. John has run 1:50 for the half when he was at Seton Hall, James has run 4:16 for the mile and Abiyot has run 3:57 for the mile, 7:45 for 3k and apparantly I just found out placed 11th in either the 2003 or 2004 WORLD XC 4K Championships....NO BIG DEAL. We stayed up in Bean Town the day before at the athlete hotel and it was pretty nice. So race day, I ran the 1200, James the 400, John the 800 and Abiyot the 1600. Now before I talk about it, the teams in the race of being note-worthy were University of Oregon, University of Wisconsin and the Oregon Track Club Elite. Before the race I listened to alot of jabber about how these team wanted to go for the Indoor World Record....I am so mad at myself for listening to this garbage. Totally took me out of my game and this shit will never happen again. I don't know why I even THOUGHT about listening to people before a race. So the race went off and I ran between 3:01-3:02 for the 1200, not bad considering no speed work, James ran 51-52, John ran 1:57 and he was not happy with his performance, and Abiyot ran 4:11 because the next closest person ahead of him was like 80 meters. The leaders splits were 2:56, 47, 1:47 and right around 4 minutes. We ended up 4th with 10:03. Not terrible but definitly not even close to our potential. Then we got to watch the rest of the sweet National Champs.

Since then I have been thinking about my training and workouts and everything that I need to focus more on everythign to bump my performances up to another notch. I have really been focusing on the eating and rest aspect more lately and running in the AM really makes me focus on that as well. So here is all teh running that I have forgotten to post in the past 2 weeks.


Thurs. Mar. 06, 2008
7-8 miles in the AM @ Saxon Woods park

Wed. Mar. 05, 2008
9 miles in the Am @ the Rockies, a little sluggish from the workout last night
PM massage

Tues. Mar. 04, 2008
3 mile warmup, 3 x mile, 2 x 200 strides, 3 mile cooldown
4:54, 4:47, 4:37...felt really comfortable

Mon. Mar. 03, 2008
9 miles in the AM @ Saxon Woods Park

Sun. Mar. 02, 2008
13 miles in Am @ the Rockies w/ Stephen and Ross

Sat. Mar. 01, 2008
3 mile warmup, 8 x 400 hills at Sleepy Hollow HS, 4 mile cooldown

Fri. Feb. 29, 2008
9 miles easy pace

Thurs. Feb 28, 2008
9 miles easy pace

Wed. Feb 27, 2008
9 miles easy pace

Tues. Feb 26, 2008
3 mile warmup, 4-4.5 mile tempo run at the Rockies, 3 mile cooldown. The weather was REAL SHITTY....cold, really rainy and the footing was all slush and ice....Not too much fun.

Mon. Feb 25, 2008
9 miles nice and easy

Sun. Feb 24, 2008
15 min. warmup, 1200 in DMR - 3:01-3:02, 5 miles easy running
USA Indoor Nationals - Reggie Lewis Center, Boston, MA. 3:25pm

Sat. Feb 23, 2008
Easy 4 miles with John and Abiyot plus 4 strides.

Easy day at Work

Fri. Feb. 22, 2008

So right now I am just hangin out at work reading a kick ass book and about to go eat lunch. I haven't written in a few days, which has been the common thing as of late. I was going through a rough patch with my training over the past few weeks and I feel myself coming out of it. I was doubling every week day since last year and when I upped my mileage upon coming home from Cali I took a nose dive. I felt great for a while but the lack of rest really caught up with me. So I talked to my coach Mike Barnow and figured out that I needed to back off a little bit and stop the two a days for a while. I also had a run where I talked out loud to myself trying to figure out what was wrong with me. After some blood tests and everything else turned out normal, the only other logical explanation was that I was probably a little overtrained. I was having the most difficult time waking up in the morning. Coming from my past of running all my runs at around 6:30 pace or better, I was now having a hard time running like 7-7:30 pace for even 3 miles. So I now am running about 65 miles a week and I am really starting to feel better. My eating has been able to be controlled and everything is looking up. This sunday I was also informed that I will be competing at USA Nationals in the DMR. Obviously it is not an individual event, seeing as if I did not race yet this indoors, it will nonetheless be an awesome/fun experience.

Also, Jeff Caron is over in Ireland racing for Team USA which I am pretty jealous about. No big deal, I will turn the tides over our rivalry somehow and sometime soon. He right now though has the upper upper hand.

Also it is snowing and the weather is pretty crappy so I will see if I will be running today or just taking it easy before my race on Sunday.

Also alot of my run have been taking place up at the Rockies after work which requires me to wear a headlamp. The trails are pretty even and there is not much concern for rocks and roots, but there are still some rocks. The only thing I think I really have to worry about is running into some pissed off/scared deer and hungry Coyotes.

Thurs. Feb. 21, 2008
1 hour run at Rockies with a headlamp

Wed. Feb 20, 2008
1 hour run at Rockies with a heaplamp

Tues. Feb 19, 2008
Irvington HS track
20 min warmup, 7x400, 20 min cooldown
66, 64, 63, 62, 62, 62, 62

It was a solid workout, and it was tough to hit the splits in the beginning cause it was cold out and we were not used to that fast of a pace with heavy clothes on.

Mon. Feb 18, 2008
1 hour run at Van Cortlandt in the morning before work

Sun. Feb 17, 2008
1 hour 30 min at the Rockies with Stephen Chemlany and the boys.
This was a nice and relaxed pace, Stephen and I chatted alot about upcoming races and previous ailments....apparantly he was also Iron deficient...Its nice to see that I am not the only one to go through that. We also agreed that we never want to go through that again.

Sat. Feb 16, 2008
2.5 mile warmup, 1.25 mile tempo, 3x400 hill 3x300 hill 3x250 hill, 3.5 mile cooldown
Tonight I went to Madison Square Garden and watched St. John's get destroyed by Villanova with Rebecca. We had some kick ass seats in the 5th row, aaaaathank you.

Fri. Feb 15, 2008
1 hour run before work, Met with Dr. Ruck in the am. A.R.T.

Thurs. Feb 14, 2008
1 hour run

Wed. Feb 13, 2008
1 hour run

Tues. Feb 12, 2008
Practice was cancelled tonight because of the shitty weather, so we ran for an hour at the Rockies with headlamps. It is awesome becuase of the scenery and how even the paths are.

Mon. Feb 11, 2008
Offf, Hamstrings were real tight

Just catching up

Ok so I am just gonna go down the list of miles since i have been terrible at keeping up. PS I have been feeling terrible running for the past month, so I have decided to back of a little bit which means no more long runs for a little bit.

Sun. 02/10/08
13 miles with Stephen Chemlany at a descent clip. My Hamstrings were sore as hell from the race.

Sat. 02/09/08
2 mile warmup, 800 leg of DMR, 3 mile cooldown
1:55
4 mile run later in the day

Fri. 02/08/08
Off

Thurs. 02/07/08
3 miles am
5 miles pm

Wed 02/06/08
9 miles at Rockies

Tues. 02/05/08
3 mile warmup, 5x800, 2.5 mile cooldown
2:19, 2:22, 2:16, 2:16, 2:11

Mon. 02/04/08
9 miles

Sun. 02/03/08
13 miles at the Rockies nice and easy with the boys

Sat. 02/02/08
2.5 mile warmup, 5x400 hills and 3x300 hills, 2.5 mile cooldown

Fri. 02/01/08
7 miles

Thurs. 01/31/08
easy 8 miles

Thats all i remember