I'm visiting my Dad and Step-Mom this weekend (and maybe longer) to watch over things and make sure that he recovers okay after a big, medical emergency. Luckily, he's okay but needs to change some things in his life. That's another story.
So today I went for a run. It's been a while, but I felt good and I have alot of things on my mind. Running seems to help sort things out and definitely helps to get rid of stress so that I can think things through with a clear head.
A few observations...
1. Running in the suburbs is way different than city running. For one, the air 'tastes' different. It's sweeter. Fresher. Better.
2. There are not as many people running out in the suburbs, so when you do pass a runner, people in the suburbs tend to be friendlier and say hello. (Apologies to the presumably Irish man on the West Side, who greeted SLG and I, saying, "Top o' the morning to you!" Obviously, not from the city.)
3. No dog poop to contend with in the suburbs. Although there are alot of acorns.
4. I didn't really have a set route when I started my run in the morning. There are so many options and turns that I ended up running alot longer than I ever have before. I ran for an hour-and-a-half, and thanks to mapmyrun.com, the run was about 7.3 miles. !!! After I got my bagel from Dunkin Donuts (not as many options in the suburbs as there are in the city), I walked home from there, so the total route ended up being 8.45 miles.
5. I definitely felt the longer run. I would take breaks when I would feel a strain in my heart, and around the 6 to 7 mile mark, I started thinking, "When will this run be over?" I had intended on running all the way back to my Dad's house, but at the 7 mile mark, my feet started hurting, and I was started to feel aches and pains in my body. I decided to listen to my body, and decided my run was over at that point. Hence, the bagel, and the walk back to my Dad's house from that point. Still, a successful run.
6. I now have an idea of how I would feel for a half-marathon. I think I might need better running shoes, or at least think about my feet somehow. Maybe I didn't put on the socks the right way? I dunno. But I got to change something. I had on my running socks (nylon, poly, spandex blend), but they felt tight after a while. Maybe more stretching? Maybe bring some gels or something? At the six mile mark, I started feeling very hungry and thirsty, and couldn't wait to eat. Hmmm...
7. While it was good to run and clear my head, and think about some big decisions in my life, I definitely missed my buddy and running buddy, SLG. At the start, I was thinking I was starting out too fast, and thought SLG would have paced us better. When I took breaks, it would have been to talk out some things or just pass the time with friendly convo with SLG!
A good run, overall. I'm quite pleased with the experience, and can build on it as I think about doing half-marathons. I actually thought I might have run longer because of the time, so I gotta think about the pace. However, a good start.
I really like running! I feel healthy, and I feel like my health is getting better. I feel like I have an active lifestyle, and I don't lose my breath when I take stairs or need to run for a bus or something. I feel in shape, and I feel really good about myself. My clothes fit differently, and I need a new wardrobe. Clothes that never used to fit, now fit great. Clothes that I used to wear, now are too loose, and don't look good on me. I tried wearing my brother's jeans the other day, and I actually could fit in them without straining to buckle. My brother has a lighter frame than I do, as I am pigeon-chested. The fact that I could even think about fitting in my bro's jeans is an amazing thing. People at work notice, and my family has even noticed. All in all, it feels pretty darn good. Run run run!
Running Giraffes, unite!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday running?
So I recently moved downtown to the Financial district. After the August 22nd run in Harlem, I basically haven't been able to run on the weekends because of all the moving (I had to move out of my old apartment and put my stuff into storage, then crash on my friend's couch, then move into my new apartment - basically, I moved twice in a span of a week). I also took a weekend to go to Vegas with my brothers, which was an awesome experience. I also meant to go on a run on my birthday weekend, but a hedonist night turned a morning run into a missed alarm and that was it.
So it's been about a month in between runs. Last Monday, I took up a suggestion my buddy SLG made, and we went for an early morning run. We woke up at 6:30a and we squeezed in a 3 mile run or so. It turned out to be an invigorating run, that I'd like to make it a routine. Normally, Mondays I'm surly at work recovering from a non-work weekend, and it takes me all morning to get in gear. Last Monday, after the run, I felt energized and felt great all day from the get go. This running thing might actually work out! Hahahaha...
SLG also suggested some running websites that I've got to check out:
www.mapmyrun.com
www.idontrememberthesecondone.com
Run on, giraffe, run on.
So it's been about a month in between runs. Last Monday, I took up a suggestion my buddy SLG made, and we went for an early morning run. We woke up at 6:30a and we squeezed in a 3 mile run or so. It turned out to be an invigorating run, that I'd like to make it a routine. Normally, Mondays I'm surly at work recovering from a non-work weekend, and it takes me all morning to get in gear. Last Monday, after the run, I felt energized and felt great all day from the get go. This running thing might actually work out! Hahahaha...
SLG also suggested some running websites that I've got to check out:
www.mapmyrun.com
www.idontrememberthesecondone.com
Run on, giraffe, run on.
Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run
Another awesome run, with my running buddy SLG. The day was kinda rainy, and it was my first race not in Central Park. Not that that was a big deal, because Harlem is just a subway train ride away. The run was very hilly, and I took off after the first big hill because I just wanted to attack the hill. It was actually a beautiful day and a beautiful route. They closed some of the streets, and part of the run was atop a hill that had a wonderful view of the streets below.
I scored another PR for mile average. This time it was under nine minutes, even if the race was still only a 5K (about 3.1 mi). Here's the numbers:
Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run
Distance: 3.1 Miles, 5.0 Kilometers
Date/Time: August 22, 2009, 8:30 am
Location: St. Nicholas Park, NYC
Weather: 74 Degrees, 98% Humidity, Calm.
Sex/
Age M
Bib 4801
City NYC
State NY
Overall
Place 986
Gender
Place 703
Age
Place 147
Finish
Time 27:38
Pace/
Mile 8:54
AG
Time 27:18
AG
Gender
Place 796
AG % 47.2 %
I scored another PR for mile average. This time it was under nine minutes, even if the race was still only a 5K (about 3.1 mi). Here's the numbers:
Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run
Distance: 3.1 Miles, 5.0 Kilometers
Date/Time: August 22, 2009, 8:30 am
Location: St. Nicholas Park, NYC
Weather: 74 Degrees, 98% Humidity, Calm.
Sex/
Age M
Bib 4801
City NYC
State NY
Overall
Place 986
Gender
Place 703
Age
Place 147
Finish
Time 27:38
Pace/
Mile 8:54
AG
Time 27:18
AG
Gender
Place 796
AG % 47.2 %
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Phys Ed: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees?
A friend sent me the below article.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/phys-ed-can-running-actually-help-your-knees/?em
Well - Tara Parker-Pope on Health
August 11, 2009, 11:59 pm
Phys Ed: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees?
By Gretchen Reynolds
Lumilon.com/Getty Images
An article in Skeletal Radiology, a well-respected journal, created something of a sensation in Europe last year. It reported that researchers from Danube Hospital in Austria examined the knees of marathon runners using M.R.I. imaging, before and after the 1997 Vienna marathon. Ten years later, they scanned the same runners’ knees again. The results were striking. “No major new internal damage in the knee joints of marathon runners was found after a 10-year interval,” the researchers reported. Only one of the participants had a knee that was truly a mess, and he’d quit running before the 1997 marathon (but had been included in that study anyway). His 1997 knee M.R.I. revealed cartilage lesions, swelling and other abnormalities. In the years that followed, the knee became worse, showing augmented tissue damage and more serious lesions. His exam prompted the researchers to wonder whether he would have been better off persisting as a runner, because, as they speculate, “continuous exercise is protective, rather than destructive,” to knees.
NYT_VideoPlayerStart({playerType:"article",videoId:"1247463944384",adxPagename:"well.blogs.nytimes.com/video"});
You can’t be a runner past the age of 40, as I am, without hearing that running will ruin your knees, by which doomsayers usually mean that we’ll develop “degeneration of the cartilage in the kneecap, which reduces its shock-absorbing capacity,” says Ross Tucker, a physiologist in South Africa and co-author of the new book “The Runner’s Body: How the Latest Exercise Science Can Help You Run Stronger, Longer and Faster.” In other words, we’ll be afflicted with arthritis.
It’s not an unreasonable supposition; other sports have been linked with early-onset arthritis in knees. In a British study, almost half of the middle-aged, formerly elite soccer players were found to have crippling, bone-on-bone arthritis in at least one knee. Former weight lifters also have a high incidence of the condition, as do retired N.F.L. players.
But despite entrenched mythology to the contrary, runners don’t seem prone to degenerating knees. An important 2008 study, this one from Stanford University, followed middle-aged, longtime distance runners (not necessarily marathoners) for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1984, when most were in their 50s or 60s. At that time, 6.7 percent of the runners had creaky, mildly arthritic knees, while none of an age-matched control group did. After 20 years, however, the runners’ knees were healthier; only 20 percent showed arthritic changes, versus 32 percent of the control group’s knees. Barely 2 percent of the runners’ knees were severely arthritic, while almost 10 percent of the control group’s were. “We were quite surprised,” says Eliza Chakravarty, an assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “Our hypothesis going in had been that runners, because of the repetitive pounding, would develop more frequent and more severe arthritis.”
Related
* More Phys Ed columns
* Faster, Higher, Stronger
* Fitness and Nutrition News
Instead, recent evidence suggests that running may actually shield somewhat against arthritis, in part because the knee develops a kind of motion groove. A group of engineers and doctors at Stanford published a study in the February issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it. But if this exquisite balance is disturbed, usually by an injury, the loading mechanisms shift, the moving parts of the knee are no longer in their accustomed alignment and a “degenerative pathway” seems to open. The cartilage, like an unbalanced tire, wears away. Pain, tissue disintegration and, eventually, arthritis can follow.
So, the best way to ensure that your knees aren’t hurt by running is not to hurt them in the first place. “The biggest predictor of injury is previous injury,” Tucker says, and one of the best deterrents against a first (or subsequent) knee injury is targeted strength training. “The hip stabilizers, quads, hamstrings and core must all be strong enough. As soon as there is weakness, some other muscle or joint must take over, and that’s when injuries happen.”
If you’ve injured your knee in the past, particularly if you’ve ever torn an A.C.L. (an injury that, in the Stanford gait study, was closely associated with misalignment and cartilage degeneration), talk to your physician before running. But for most runners, the scientific observations of Chakravarty will ring true. “What struck me,” she says, “is that the runners we studied were still running, well into their 70s and 80s.” They weren’t running far, she says. They weren’t running frequently. They averaged perhaps 90 minutes a week. “But they were still running.”
* Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
* Privacy Policy
* NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/phys-ed-can-running-actually-help-your-knees/?em
Well - Tara Parker-Pope on Health
August 11, 2009, 11:59 pm
Phys Ed: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees?
By Gretchen Reynolds
Lumilon.com/Getty Images
An article in Skeletal Radiology, a well-respected journal, created something of a sensation in Europe last year. It reported that researchers from Danube Hospital in Austria examined the knees of marathon runners using M.R.I. imaging, before and after the 1997 Vienna marathon. Ten years later, they scanned the same runners’ knees again. The results were striking. “No major new internal damage in the knee joints of marathon runners was found after a 10-year interval,” the researchers reported. Only one of the participants had a knee that was truly a mess, and he’d quit running before the 1997 marathon (but had been included in that study anyway). His 1997 knee M.R.I. revealed cartilage lesions, swelling and other abnormalities. In the years that followed, the knee became worse, showing augmented tissue damage and more serious lesions. His exam prompted the researchers to wonder whether he would have been better off persisting as a runner, because, as they speculate, “continuous exercise is protective, rather than destructive,” to knees.
NYT_VideoPlayerStart({playerType:"article",videoId:"1247463944384",adxPagename:"well.blogs.nytimes.com/video"});
You can’t be a runner past the age of 40, as I am, without hearing that running will ruin your knees, by which doomsayers usually mean that we’ll develop “degeneration of the cartilage in the kneecap, which reduces its shock-absorbing capacity,” says Ross Tucker, a physiologist in South Africa and co-author of the new book “The Runner’s Body: How the Latest Exercise Science Can Help You Run Stronger, Longer and Faster.” In other words, we’ll be afflicted with arthritis.
It’s not an unreasonable supposition; other sports have been linked with early-onset arthritis in knees. In a British study, almost half of the middle-aged, formerly elite soccer players were found to have crippling, bone-on-bone arthritis in at least one knee. Former weight lifters also have a high incidence of the condition, as do retired N.F.L. players.
But despite entrenched mythology to the contrary, runners don’t seem prone to degenerating knees. An important 2008 study, this one from Stanford University, followed middle-aged, longtime distance runners (not necessarily marathoners) for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1984, when most were in their 50s or 60s. At that time, 6.7 percent of the runners had creaky, mildly arthritic knees, while none of an age-matched control group did. After 20 years, however, the runners’ knees were healthier; only 20 percent showed arthritic changes, versus 32 percent of the control group’s knees. Barely 2 percent of the runners’ knees were severely arthritic, while almost 10 percent of the control group’s were. “We were quite surprised,” says Eliza Chakravarty, an assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “Our hypothesis going in had been that runners, because of the repetitive pounding, would develop more frequent and more severe arthritis.”
Related
* More Phys Ed columns
* Faster, Higher, Stronger
* Fitness and Nutrition News
Instead, recent evidence suggests that running may actually shield somewhat against arthritis, in part because the knee develops a kind of motion groove. A group of engineers and doctors at Stanford published a study in the February issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it. But if this exquisite balance is disturbed, usually by an injury, the loading mechanisms shift, the moving parts of the knee are no longer in their accustomed alignment and a “degenerative pathway” seems to open. The cartilage, like an unbalanced tire, wears away. Pain, tissue disintegration and, eventually, arthritis can follow.
So, the best way to ensure that your knees aren’t hurt by running is not to hurt them in the first place. “The biggest predictor of injury is previous injury,” Tucker says, and one of the best deterrents against a first (or subsequent) knee injury is targeted strength training. “The hip stabilizers, quads, hamstrings and core must all be strong enough. As soon as there is weakness, some other muscle or joint must take over, and that’s when injuries happen.”
If you’ve injured your knee in the past, particularly if you’ve ever torn an A.C.L. (an injury that, in the Stanford gait study, was closely associated with misalignment and cartilage degeneration), talk to your physician before running. But for most runners, the scientific observations of Chakravarty will ring true. “What struck me,” she says, “is that the runners we studied were still running, well into their 70s and 80s.” They weren’t running far, she says. They weren’t running frequently. They averaged perhaps 90 minutes a week. “But they were still running.”
* Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
* Privacy Policy
* NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Run for Central Park, July 18, 2009, 4M
I did it! Another run, and I still feel great. Awesome! Engage your core!
This time, I tried for a PR, and I got it. Suh-weet!
It was a little bit hotter on the day of the run than the first one. It also was a scored race, meaning that it counted toward the 10 or so races NYRR members need to run in a calendar year in order to qualify for next year's NYC Marathon. Since my first race was not a scored qualifier, I think the atmosphere was a little more relaxed, a little less serious.
This race had more intensity in the air, as the runners seemed to be a little more focused. The first race also gave out medals to everyone; this race gave out pretzels. I like the medals better. : )
My bud SLG and I took our place around the 10min pace. I quickly discovered that the bibs were number and color coded by your mile pace time. (The first race just had signs that said what mile pace time was). When we ran, I did feel good ad not as sluggish as I originally thought I was going to be. SLG started at a faster pace this time, around 9:30 for the first mile. By the second mile, I needed water, and I did my slow motion water thing. Splash! Into the third mile, I started to push it and kept up the same pace. The hills seemed more hilly this time, and I was feeling it a little bit. I almost felt a stomach cramp come on, but I was able to fight it down. (Does that make sense?)
Anyway, I didn't have as much gas at the end as I did my first race, but I did try and sprint for the finish line. I ended up with an average mile pace of 9:21, meaning I must have gotten stronger and faster as the run unfolded? That made me feel pretty good.
The race was awesome, and I was pleased I got a PR. I want to continue to improve, and I've already registered for my next race: Harlem run on 8/22. After the race, SLG and I met up and we proceeded to take pictures and also get our customary bagels at Pick-a-Bagel on E.77th St. Nice!
I was looking for another friend that was running the same race. We had a mini-competition of who would beat eachother. Considering I'm kind of a big deal, I told her that I would be waiting for her at the finish line. LOL. We didn't end up connecting (next time, we'll have to have a designated meeting spot), and in this bizarro world, she ended up beating me. Hey, I only started running a couple months ago, and she's been running triathalons and half-marathons for about three years now! Anyway, she's been encouraging me, and now I want to do triathalons too. Of course, one run at a time though. This is exciting!
Thanks to SLG for inspiring me to run. It's awesome having a running buddy because we encourage eachother and commit to running together. Because of that, we end up running on days even when we don't feel like rolling out of bed. I only really run 1x a week, which turns out to be enough for now. Imagine what it will be like when I can run 2 or (gasp) even 3x a week! For now, I exercise in other ways and just run 1x a week.
On this day, I also had a drumming performance in the Hamptons after the run. Why do I keep running and drumming on the same day? It makes for a long day, but you know what? I actually get more energy by running, so it was a great day for a run, and for a drum!
Here are my results:
Run for Central Park
List by Name: peter han
Distance: 4.0 Miles, 6.4 Kilometers
Date/Time: July 18, 2009, 9:00 am
Location: Central Park, NYC
Weather: 70 Degrees, 94% Humidity, Wind 8 mph
Bib Finish Time Pace/Mile AG Time AG Gender Place AG %
6293 37:25 9:21 36:59 2241 45.5 %
This time, I tried for a PR, and I got it. Suh-weet!
It was a little bit hotter on the day of the run than the first one. It also was a scored race, meaning that it counted toward the 10 or so races NYRR members need to run in a calendar year in order to qualify for next year's NYC Marathon. Since my first race was not a scored qualifier, I think the atmosphere was a little more relaxed, a little less serious.
This race had more intensity in the air, as the runners seemed to be a little more focused. The first race also gave out medals to everyone; this race gave out pretzels. I like the medals better. : )
My bud SLG and I took our place around the 10min pace. I quickly discovered that the bibs were number and color coded by your mile pace time. (The first race just had signs that said what mile pace time was). When we ran, I did feel good ad not as sluggish as I originally thought I was going to be. SLG started at a faster pace this time, around 9:30 for the first mile. By the second mile, I needed water, and I did my slow motion water thing. Splash! Into the third mile, I started to push it and kept up the same pace. The hills seemed more hilly this time, and I was feeling it a little bit. I almost felt a stomach cramp come on, but I was able to fight it down. (Does that make sense?)
Anyway, I didn't have as much gas at the end as I did my first race, but I did try and sprint for the finish line. I ended up with an average mile pace of 9:21, meaning I must have gotten stronger and faster as the run unfolded? That made me feel pretty good.
The race was awesome, and I was pleased I got a PR. I want to continue to improve, and I've already registered for my next race: Harlem run on 8/22. After the race, SLG and I met up and we proceeded to take pictures and also get our customary bagels at Pick-a-Bagel on E.77th St. Nice!
I was looking for another friend that was running the same race. We had a mini-competition of who would beat eachother. Considering I'm kind of a big deal, I told her that I would be waiting for her at the finish line. LOL. We didn't end up connecting (next time, we'll have to have a designated meeting spot), and in this bizarro world, she ended up beating me. Hey, I only started running a couple months ago, and she's been running triathalons and half-marathons for about three years now! Anyway, she's been encouraging me, and now I want to do triathalons too. Of course, one run at a time though. This is exciting!
Thanks to SLG for inspiring me to run. It's awesome having a running buddy because we encourage eachother and commit to running together. Because of that, we end up running on days even when we don't feel like rolling out of bed. I only really run 1x a week, which turns out to be enough for now. Imagine what it will be like when I can run 2 or (gasp) even 3x a week! For now, I exercise in other ways and just run 1x a week.
On this day, I also had a drumming performance in the Hamptons after the run. Why do I keep running and drumming on the same day? It makes for a long day, but you know what? I actually get more energy by running, so it was a great day for a run, and for a drum!
Here are my results:
Run for Central Park
List by Name: peter han
Distance: 4.0 Miles, 6.4 Kilometers
Date/Time: July 18, 2009, 9:00 am
Location: Central Park, NYC
Weather: 70 Degrees, 94% Humidity, Wind 8 mph
Bib Finish Time Pace/Mile AG Time AG Gender Place AG %
6293 37:25 9:21 36:59 2241 45.5 %
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A few tips, #1
Here are a few tips for running that I have picked up along the way, from magazines, from my running buddy SLG, and from natural spontaneous brilliance.
1. Keep toenails trim, not too short, not too long.
2. Wear the right socks, preferably nylon. 100% cotton is not good for long runs.
3. When running, make sure to keep hands loose. If you find yourself making fists, then shake it out. Practice running with the the thumb and second or third finger touching, as if holding a piece of paper.
4. When being chased by giraffes, realize all they want is the best leaves from the top of the best trees. Just share, buddy, just share.
Keep those tips coming! A do-run-run-run, a-do-run-RUN!
1. Keep toenails trim, not too short, not too long.
2. Wear the right socks, preferably nylon. 100% cotton is not good for long runs.
3. When running, make sure to keep hands loose. If you find yourself making fists, then shake it out. Practice running with the the thumb and second or third finger touching, as if holding a piece of paper.
4. When being chased by giraffes, realize all they want is the best leaves from the top of the best trees. Just share, buddy, just share.
Keep those tips coming! A do-run-run-run, a-do-run-RUN!
Monday, July 13, 2009
My next race!
Told you this was addicting. Here's my next race:
Run for Central Park / Kids' Races - Saturday, July 18 / 4M • 9:00 a.m., Kids Races • 10:00 a.m. / Central Park, New York / S, Q, C, + (M/W)
I hope I'm up for it. I already feel the sluggishness hitting. Yes, I know my body that well, that I can feel how I'm going to feel one week in advance. Whatever.
Go go gadget legs!
SLG and I ran yesterday to prep for the race. The best part? Murray's bagels after the run. Yum!
Run for Central Park / Kids' Races - Saturday, July 18 / 4M • 9:00 a.m., Kids Races • 10:00 a.m. / Central Park, New York / S, Q, C, + (M/W)
I hope I'm up for it. I already feel the sluggishness hitting. Yes, I know my body that well, that I can feel how I'm going to feel one week in advance. Whatever.
Go go gadget legs!
SLG and I ran yesterday to prep for the race. The best part? Murray's bagels after the run. Yum!
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