The Sad Truth

It’s starting to become apparent to me that I am not going to be able to run the marathon. I tried to get a few miles in today. I took myself up to the park, stretched a bit, and gave it my best, and my ankle had nothing. I couldn’t come anywhere near a normal stride, and what I did manage, I didn’t want to stick with for any length of time. It hurts more now a few hours later. I can deny reality with the best, but it isn’t likely I’ll be doing 26 in a week. Honestly, I’m not sure when I’ll be running again.

I’ve never had a running injury before this year, not even shin splints, but this year I’ve been plagued by them. I had shin splints in the spring, I could barely motivate in the summer, and I’ve been fighting the Achilles in my other leg for most of the fall. So, in a way, injuries are the story of my running year and this may well be the capper. See you in the spring.

Of course, it’s not time to say it isn’t happening quite yet. I don’t even have to cancel until nearly 17 hours before the start. I don’t have to cancel at all if I really want to push my luck. A little further down the line is the Philly Marathon and then even further Palm Beach. Injury allowing, I don’t have to give up on all of the training yet. Still, that’s not a lot of consolation, it’s just more limbo. Until I can run at all, I think I have to put it all out of my mind, something that’s not all that easy.

If you read about running, you read about runners becoming depressed when they suffer an injury that forces them to interrupt their training. Running has a way of becoming part of your life; it can even become part of your lifestyle. Take away something like that and there’s going to be effect.

Training for the marathon in 2004, I had no one to run with besides Slow Tony. That’s changed, mostly through the hash, but it seems like everyone else I know is a runner now. Really strange women propose running dates with me on nerve.com and everyone I know is doing some sort of team in training event. Very cool, at least it was until this happened. Now, I feel left out, I feel jealous, and I feel a little bit like a loser. That’s all silly of course, but its how I feel. Ultimately, I feel sorry for myself because this really sucks.

Anyway, that’s the last I’m going to write on this subject until I can run again. I’m going to abuse my body for a few days now, and we’ll see where that takes me.

a little help please

I’m not the happiest of campers this morning. I didn’t sleep so well last night and busted paw doesn’t feel any better this morning. The improvement yesterday was pretty sizeable though, so I can’t be too upset. My new goal is to do 3.5 really slow miles on Friday, though I think Sunday is a much more likely day to get going again. We’ll see. Right now, it’s not an option.

The really annoying thing but all this is that I’ve been running as well lately as I had since the spring. In workouts last week, I finally found a higher gear I had been missing after getting off track in April and finding it hard to get it right again. To have this happen now is particularly frustrating.

cocoa bar

There was no question I was going to be coming to Cocoa Bar on a pretty regular basis. Located directly across the street from my apartment, the 8,347th cafe on 7th Avenue in Park Slope sells chocolate, coffee, and wine, has a big backyard with brick, ivy and mosaic, some comfy indoor space, a cool waitress named Liz, and a cool waiter, Darren, whom I seem to run into everywhere.The toddler mafia hasn’t invaded yet, a blessing if there ever was one.

Once a week or so I’ll head over with my buddy Pit Bull to play some scrabble. I know, we’re cool like that. The coffee is great, and the wine selection is interesting. I’m not a big chocolate fan but Pit Bull is and he says the selection is "good but pedestrian.". Since it seems natural to compare the place to Tea Lounge, I’ll just say neither Tea Lounge location has ever seemed particularly comfortable or authentic, qualities Cocoa posseses. I’m more than happy to head over there and have some of what they’re offering.

Bar Minnow

For the life of me I wish I would stop going back to this place. Every time I go there I’m dissapointed.

The first time I went was in the summer, I’d heard the food was good and I wanted to sit outside after my run. Unfortunately, the corner of 7th Avenue and 9th St is way too congested for that sort of thing. The $20. lobster roll was awful too, but I’m not a big fan of lobster rolls in general.

I went again a few weeks later and had the burger which did nothing special for me and the service was awful. The next time I had their fancy Philly cheese Steak Au Jus. Also unimpressive. I sat inside this time and both me and my friend Sara were weirded out by the way the back dining room is eye level with the sidewalk. I had another crappy burger a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I had the fried chicken which couldn’t have been any less seasoned.
On the plus side, the fries are good and they’ve started making their own tasty doughnuts. the bar is sizeable and looks like a comfortable enough placeot have a drink or two. Unfortunately it’s full of 23year olds boys from Bay Ridge.

Do yourself a favor, if you want similar fare either in or outdoors, go to Dizzy’s up the block. Their burgers rock.

I Quit

Here’s the thing. People keep saying to me that it’s not going to happen. "There’s no way you’re running the marathon" they say and I don’t think they have any business saying it, right or wrong. I’m the only one that gets to say that. Possible or impossible, good idea or not, it all comes down to me. I make the choice. Anybody whose ever trained for something for months on end and suffered a serious roadblock a short while before know exactly what I mean. The fact is I caught a break or more specifically I didn’t, since the ankle is only sprained. That means I have a shot to still run the marathon, and from the way I feel this morning, I think it’s a decent shot. Sure, my ankle hurts, and walking is a challenge, but it’s better than yesterday, and I think that sometime Friday I’ll be getting 3.5 slow miles in.

Tumbling Down

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Getting to the start was nearly impossible. My initial plan was to meet a bunch at Van Cortland Park and get our miles in there, but everyone bailed on me, well except for Salt Lick, but by the time she called I was bound for Williamsburg. From there, the Empress Norma was going to take my bag to the hash start, so I could get some miles in before running the trail and have dry clothes at the finish. Unfortunately, someone decided to split the G into several parts, so by the time I met up with her I was 25 minutes later than I wanted to be. Then she pointed me in the wrong direction. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

From there though it was a nice run,past the Billyburg Jews and their awful plastic sukkases, over the Williamsburg Bridge, and uptown via the L.E.S., Park and Lex, finally reaching the start of the trail a full 15 minutes after the pack had headed off. Heading into the park, I felt a bit tired, but by the time I caught up to Mean Jean and Lauren I was good. 10 minutes later I reached the front of the pack lost on the west side and once the trail was found, charged up a hill into the park having the time of my life. I love the shiggy, and in the last miles of the last long run of marathon training, I felt great.

And then I fell. I rolled my ankle on a similar charge downhill (stupid!), screaming as I hit the earth. I’m not sure exactly what happened, whether it popped, how exactly I did it, any of that. In the time it took me to sprawl to the ground I registered a pretty good amount of pain, I started freaking out about the marathon, and let out a howl. My ankle blew up to the size of my knee. The first time I tried to get up I went down again. I think I might have cried for about a second from the pain. Not good.

A lot of my fellow hashers stopped to help me out and I made it out of the park soon enough. They were great, I can’t say enough about that. From there I went to the on-in where once I warmed up, the pain got so bad I thought I might throw up. I don’t remember ever feeling like that. Fortunately, a vicodin/advil cocktail helped out a bit.

Anyway, it’s the next morning now and the swelling has nearly gone away, but I’ve developed an entirely special kind of morning stiffness that I get the feeling is not going to be easy to resolve. I’m in a considerable amount of pain, but I slept through the night and I expect my ankle to loosen up soon enough. Ok, I hope it will. One way or the other I may have to head off to Methodist for a look see, I think I’m gonna need more drugs if nothing else.

The Marathon starts in exactly 13 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes. Fuck me.

A Real Good Day

Leave nothing on the track. That’s what I try to do when I run a race, when I really run a race. Yesterday was the first time I’ve done that since the Brooklyn Half Marathon last Spring, it was the first race I felt strong in, in a good long while. Seeing I was trying to break my PR of 1:43:09 and get some redemption for my embarrasing DNF at the NY Half last month, this was a welcome change. It started out really nice, unusual since getting through the pack at the beginning of an NYRR race is like walking past Rockefeller Center during the holidays. Usually this leaves you hopscotching through the pack or slogging through the first mile; neither of which is a great way to begin.

This time I was off and running and comfortable from the gun. My watch ate my split times, but my first mile went in about 8:15, and as I am a slow starter, this in itself was something good. More importantly, having wanted to expel my bagel and coffee from both ends for nearly an hour, I felt terrific. That’s pretty much the way it went the rest of the race as I more or less ran all my splits between 7:30 and 7:55, incredibly consistent for me. I felt a little bit tired around mile 8 or 9, and from there on my legs had that hollow feeling you get when you’re no longer working off glycogen, but at that point I wasn’t backing off the pace. I knew I could pull personal record time in this race, in fact if I had anyting special left in me and could throw out a 7 minute mile or two, I could even break 1:40, but I also knew that any slow down would mean I’d spend the last mile fighting for that PR, and I didn’t really want to be that close for comfort.

So, I ran it strong, but avoided the temptation to really let loose at any point in the final 3.1 miles. I ended up with a 1:41:16 half marathon taking nearly 2 minutes off my previous best. I pumped my fist, and then I had some gatorade. A few minutes later I vomited it up on the side of the road. Not a drop was left on the track.

Schnack

According to the web site, "Schnack is "about" serving authentic food at a good price." Well, while I have no idea what makes their food authentic and price is pretty subjective, I can say that they serve the best burger that I’ve ever had in Brooklyn. Their burgers are actually multi-patty, up to four McDonald’s size hamburgers on a bun, and my three were smothered with chedder, caressed with bacon, and the toasted bun was smeared with some sort of mustard/horseradish (I think) sauce. Excellent.

Schnack has a ton of sides offered including some Polish Jubilat bacon which was pretty good (thick!) and what I thought were decent, if uninteresting fries and crummy onion rings. This is a small price to pay however and I can easily see stopping by some other time that I’m in the Carroll Gardens/Red Hook area.

http://www.schnackdog.com/