Blissful Sunday run

Pure bliss! Just one of those ones where you feel it's very, very precious that you can even have such a thing, I really enjoyed almost every minute of it...

(I don't like running on the underpass bike path, it makes me feel rushed and indeed I do end up running faster for that part, it is not actually at all dangerous as the cyclists know perfectly well that they share that stretch with pedestrians, but that's the one bit I don't like...)

8 lovely miles, easy... (Sunny, forty degrees, perfect running weather.)

Fortunately yesterday I realized that there's a race this morning in Central Park and that insofar as running's purpose is to augment mental health as well as physical fitness it would be sheer madness for me to think that the training benefit of the hills could possibly outweigh the full horror of having to navigate teeming masses of humanity...

So I did a straight-up west side run, down to 34th St. and back (I was tempted to add on a couple miles and go down all the way to 14th St., but it was not sensible). Very nice! The Riverside Park bit that I usually do is lovely, but the stretch down past the sanitation pier and onto the bike path is very appealing also. It does not have bucolic charms, the path runs right alongside the West Side Highway, but on the other hand the allure of the postindustrial urban waterfront landscape is very strong. (In fact really maybe that's more my kind of scene than landscaped park in any case?!?)

8.12 miles, average HR 147, average pace 10:00
10:11 (143), 10:21 (147), 10:08 (147), 9:56 (145), 9:48 (145), 9:43 (150), 9:40 (150), 9:37 (149)

Hmmmm, in the slightly lower-than-usual HR I see the benefits of two reasonable nights of sleep and a lighter than usual week of exercise. (Monday off for illness, Wednesday for tiredness, and M.'s out of town this week and next because of a death in the family, so no gym workout(s); all I have had since the half-marathon a week ago was three one-hour swims, one six-mile run and 90 minutes biking--light, frankly!).

I felt super-energetic, strong and with springy legs and very enthusiastic--only starving! I was sort of ravenously hungry by the third mile, which is very unusual. I am going to reread the excellent nutrition chapter in Gale Bernhardt's triathlon book, I can see that adding in the biking (which is longer in duration than the other stuff) is going to need some adjustment on food. It seemed like I did eat a big dinner last night afterwards, but clearly it either should have been bigger or else I then need to get up early and eat more breakfast pre-run--it was not that I was underfueled, I had eaten adequate breakfast for fueling purposes, but really I should not be feeling hungry like that, it is most distracting!

Tomorrow's off for logistical reasons, but expect some further thoughts on swimming Tuesday evening...