Back in the Berkshires!

It has been abnormally chilly (49-67 degrees) in Lenox, Massachusetts making it perfect running weather!

My run this afternoon took me to Tanglewood where tonight Christian Tetzlaff will be playing (among others) Beethoven's Kreutzer Violin Sonata. I find it interesting that the sequence of keys he is playing is: G A G, which is probably what I'd do if I sat through THREE Beethoven Violin Sonatas. (Beethoven is great, but three!)

There are a few more hills around here than I'm used to after running along the Hudson, but I was able to make it home without sticking around for the Beethoven!

Ohio running is where it's at!

Anthony and I are in Cleveland! Still!

After a 12 hour journey on Thursday, including a 3-hour delay at La Guardia, followed by the cancellation of our flight, a cab ride over to Newark for a new flight, another 2 1/2 hour delay there, we finally landed safe and sound at 12:30a.m. at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport! While waiting at the 2 airports, we sampled the very best in airport cuisine and met some very nice people. Did you know that Newark Concourse C now has a wine bar that offers flights of wine for $7 and nice cured meats and cheeses? Well, it now does! We did some shopping, some strolling, and if it wasn't probably a crime, we would have gone for a jog.

When I think about my city of birth and childhood, I think about the running trails it hosts. We ran a few of my favorites this weekend. Ohio has many thousands of acres of parks, with many trails for running, biking and horseback riding. Friday, we ran through the beautiful neighborhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio, past beautiful turn of the century mansions and around scenic lakes.

July Fourth, we did a 6 mile run on the Chagrin reservation towpaths, a pretty adventurous trail run with streams to walk over via large rocks and twists and turns that revealed ever more beautiful land that will never be built on.

Today, I took Anthony to Peninsula, Ohio (click on the tile above for website about the town) for a trail run that started at a historic railway station and went by a swift river that beckoned for a swim. I declined.

We decided to stay an extra night to enjoy the sound of the birds chirping outside my folks house. Not a neighbor in sight or within earshot. Aahhhhh!!! If only Midtown were this quiet and Central Park had bubbling rivers that one could take a dip in without getting a ticket.

Bliss.

Sunday Columbus Avenue Report. As a limerick

On Sunday the Fifth of July
Four runners went running, but why?
They ran for four miles,
were greeted with smiles
and lattes, though some preferred chai.

Full disclosure: technically, new runner Danielle had iced tea, but chai was easier to rhyme in this context.

Christopher

Running Bellies - guest blog by Krs10

Ok, I cannot believe I am sharing this photo as I look like a big fatty, but Gabby thought it would be good to share the adventures of a pregnant runner for posterity. My friend Becca, on the far right, and I, on the far left, were both about six months pregnant for the Manhattan Mini 10K, June 7th, in Central Park. She decided to get a small shirt so that she would have it for the longterm; I decided I might need more XL’s for the summer, so I look like a blimp. All through the race people were cheering Becca on for being pregnant and probably just feeling bad for me that I was so fat and slow. I wouldn’t mind that much if a really hot and fit looking Aaron Eckhart of In the Company of Men fame hadn’t run right by at the end of the race as we were milling about and made eye contact (well, maybe he made eye contact because I was staring at him and scaring him.)

For some reason it isn’t that strange to be at the beginning of a NYRR race with thousands of women and no men. It is a good testament to how many women run in NYC that it doesn’t feel odd when it is just women. I was nervous before the race, much like I might be before a half marathon rather than a 10K. Five and a half miles is about the limit of my general running these days and sometimes I walk a little then, and for some reason a 10K in a public race was intimidating. I felt nauseous and dizzy before the start. But, once we started it is just so fun to run with other people (yay, Joes!) and we went a nice slow pace with a particularly slow start from the crowds so that I felt fine and peppy the whole way. Unusually, the race starts up Central Park West starting from Columbus Circle before entering the park in the 90’s and it did feel empowering to see a beautiful avenue lined with towering buildings filled with women running. That they would shut down a whole road for us was flattering. Our group hung together and chatted the whole way and the park is so nice and cool under the canopy in the shade that it was really a pleasant experience. All five of us finished together – a lovely women’s outing. Hopefully, the NYRR’s will start age-group categories for pregnant women like four months, six, months, eight months, so we could maybe win something for once, but I guess that would be ill-advised as it would encourage women to push it and compete, which is not recommended.

Given no other contraindications and if you are a regular runner, running is fine all through pregnancy and can provide a number of benefits to mother and baby. (See Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James F. Clapp III) Pregnant women even have certain competitive advantages like higher blood volume and better heat radiation. Apparently, the East Germans tried to cheat in one of the Olympics by making sure their athletes were 12 weeks pregnant, which is supposedly like blood doping. Nobody I have spoken with, though, has felt like a superior athlete at 12 weeks, but hey.

The hard part is knowing your body, which is changing every day. As a runner, you generally know good and bad pain, when to push it if you are tired and flat and when not to. When you are pregnant it is much harder to gauge all that especially since the general population is expecting you to stop running; you feel a much greater burden of responsibility. There is always the nagging fear that you overdid it and did something bad. In some ways being pregnant is probably similar to being an older runner. You have to be very regular and keep it up or it is hard both mentally and physically to get back into it. So I try not to take more than a couple days off doing other activities because otherwise I lose confidence that I will be able to keep this up throughout, which I hope to do for all the health benefits, both mental and physical for me and the hanger on and because running rules.

So hope to see you all along the West Side Highway Park this summer. I’ll be the bulging one in the giant t-shirts.

Cleveland Bound. Again.

Check out the utube video link above about Cleveland. It's rough, but funny. I will be running and eating and celebrating The Rocket's Red Glare in the heart-shaped state in the midwest this weekend. 

It's actually quite nice, despite all the jokes. It's green, it's quiet, and there's amazing running to be ran in thousands of miles of parks. 

As for the Team Joe runs, as far as I know, most people are here and I know for a fact that people will be running Saturday and Sunday, although running with hangover Sunday may be rough. Drink lots of water. Weather looks clear for the weekend, but based on recent events, you may want to check your Crackberry on your way to the run.

The Benefits of Group Running by Liz Robbins

I cut and pasted this from the online NY Times Blog via Jen "The Jinx". Click link above for actual article.

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Long distance running may be the ultimate individual pursuit, offering a time for peace, solitude and communion with one’s body. But for many runners, distance running is the epitome of community, a true testament to the uplifting spirit of the sport.

Liz Robbins

Gill Schumaker, 68, who started the suburban Chicago running group Team NorthShore, says he used to be one of those people who savored running alone and didn’t want to be dragged on an unfamiliar pace. But when he moved from Cincinnati to Chicago, he formed a running group to help make running the area’s flat trails more interesting.

“And now, it’s like I can’t run without a group -– just the camaraderie, and experiencing what’s going on with them,” Mr. Schumaker said. “I learned how to run fast by being with a group. What it was, is that I wanted to be with those people.”

He vividly recalls a morning run a few years ago when members of the group, including an ex-officer of the United States Air Force, the Israeli Air Force and the Russian army, broke into song, each extemporizing a verse about the joys of running. Chanting in perfect cadence (”I don’t know, but I’ve been told…”), they charged to the end of the run.

Rob Udewitz, a clinical and sports psychologist in Manhattan, said many runners change their pace when they run in a group. “There is a phenomenon of running with people where you run faster and easier,” he said.

Call it motivation. Competition. Or accountability.

“It’s easy to roll over and go back to bed if it’s just you,” said Gail Kislevitz, an author of running books and coach of Team for Kids, the New York Road Runners Foundation team that raises money for youth fitness. “You know if you have a group waiting for you on the corner, you don’t want to be the one not to show up.”

Sometimes just joining the group can be the hardest part. “There’s a lot of intimidation for beginning runners early on to go into a group,” Mr. Udewitz said. “They think it’s like gym class and they’ll be the slowest, or be last. But that quickly dissolves.”

When Ms. Kislevitz decided to run her first marathon, a friend elected to help her get through the unknown of the long run. She was hesitant, not wanting to sacrifice her private time where she wrote many of her articles in her head. But then she and her friend started the run.

“We fell into the same pace, and before I knew it, the ten miles were over,” she said. “We were talking about our kids and our marriages and I thought, ‘This is amazing, how could I ever run a long run alone again?’”

She added: “You don’t really notice the pain. If you start whining, someone is going to tell you to shut up.”

The benefits of training with a team extend beyond encouragement to peer analysis, too. “If you do more intense workouts, like interval workouts, that kind of work is so much easier with a group,” Mr. Udewitz said.

Often, the group is formed because of a common purpose like a charity. Sometimes the post-workout socialization is the raison d’etre. (Powered by Dim Sum is my favorite named team in the New York area).

Of course, every runner trains the way their mind, body and schedule works best. The two-time New York City champion Jelena Prokopcuka trains only with her husband, Aleks, in the Latvian beach town of Jurmala. Many Kenyan runners, whether training in Boulder, Colo., or in the Rift Valley of Africa, work as a team in practices.

Time and geography may limit people’s ability to join teams. One woman, Patricia Plasencia, told me how she trained for the 2006 New York City Marathon by herself at 4:30 in the morning in Del Rio, Tex., before she went to work as a physical therapist’s assistant. Every day she would sprint past a pack of wild dogs near the Laughlin Air Force Base until they got used to her scent. Having joined Team for Kids, she used online coaching to prepare for her first marathon. The following year, Ms. Plasencia was the first name chosen in the lottery.

For runners who train in New York’s Central Park, the pack mentality can tend to tip to extremes. On some summer Tuesday evenings in the thick of marathon training, those who do not belong can get swept up in the chaos. Runners from teams, classes and clubs all seem to be rushing in opposite directions on the bridle path and park drives.

So much for the loneliness of the long-distance runner.

How do you say "run" in croatian?

Greetings from Split! Took a run earlier this evening (with alex!) and saw parts of Split that most tourists don't even know about! (read:construction sites) this picture was taken right before our post-run dip in the Adriatic. Note the mud crusted on my running shoes. Let's just say this little guy saw some things that most iphone's can't imagine! 

 

Say hi to the rest of the campers for me! 

 

Caitlin