Bloody Nipples is not Cockney slang:

A while back, long before I even thought about running the NYC Marathon, I was in a new running store, Jack Rabbit looking at shoes. The neat thing about this place is they video tape you running and tell you about your running style and what type of shoe would be good best for your foot.

So, I go through this whole production. The woman was super nice and patient with me. She let me try on a bunch of shoes, most of them in the $80-$130 range. As I was sitting there trying on different shoes, right at my eye level was a package of these things:

I got a good laugh at these things. Ha! Ha! Then the woman helping me asked me what was so funny. I told her and she said, "you'd be surprised how many men end up with bloody or irritated nipples." Yeah right I thought.

Flash forward a few months. Here I am in my second week of training for the NYC Marathon and I come to realize a couple of very important things: Cotton shirts are not the best shirts to run in and this is probably the most important thing I learned: NIPPLE IRRITATION IS REAL!!!

I'll talk about the cotton fabrics and my conversion to the "dri-fit" athletic wear in another blog, but now let me talk about Nipple Irritation. It hurts like hell! If my chosen profession did not require me to wear a shirt I wouldn't but, alas Chippendales is not busting down my door.

Now, I remembered the Nipple Guards, but I really thought these were for women (they're not just for women by the way). And I wasn't about to tell the Brooklyn coaches, both women, that my nipples hurt, because I'd die of embarrassment. Fortunately Coach Vanessa let us all in on the joys and wonders of BODY GLIDE. She told us it was good for chafing, blisters on the feet, and for men it's good to put on your nipples.

I didn't waste anytime after that practice, I bought some right away. I'm much more comfortable now. I highly recommend this product.

Run in good health.


JP

7/29/06

Two days of rest was not enough.

I set out to run 10 miles and seemed to be going along just fine. Then I stopped for a drink and took a few steps. Holy CoW it felt like someone was stabbing my knee.

I thought it's nothing. I jogged a few more steps and I was done for the day. I walked back to the bag watch, picked up my bag and went straight to the YMCA for a stretch in the air cooled comfort and a rinse in a cold shower.

The pain didn't go away when I got home, so I iced it up. Fearing this was ITBS I got on the computer and started the research. The first thing everyone says: REST. STOP RUNNING.

So no running for me for the next few days. Plenty of ice and rest. I think the two hard workouts this past week just ran me down, so now the body is saying you need to take it easy.

I'll keep you up to date.

JP

7/26/06

The Big Coach Comes to Brooklyn

Coach Ramon came to Brooklyn tonight. I didn't even know we had practice till that morning. It kind of put a kink in my plans for the day. It was a celebration day of sorts and I was hoping to take my lady out for a dinner, but...

I made her go to practice instead. I thought it would be a review of all the hill work we did on Tuesday night. But NOOOOOOO, Ramon felt we all needed a little strength training.

This involved doing a lot of squats, sprinting up and down hills, more squats and some other postures that became increasingly difficult the longer we stayed in the pose. For example we'd stand like this:

Ok, I didn't have the umbrella for support, but trust me it wasn't easy getting into this position. Actually all we did was pick one leg up off the ground and hold it so that the quad was parallel to the ground.

I am sore today. Feeling a few pains in muscles I didn't know I didn't know I had. But it's all good. We're gearing up for a long this Saturday, so Ramon told us to take it easy Thursday and Friday.

-JP

Grace: A few Words

I work out with a lot of people (over a hundred). I see a lot of different running styles; people who have never run to elite athletes and everyone in between.

Some runners have natural grace, the arms and legs move in perfect rhythm; to see a graceful running is a real thing of beauty.

Some runners don't. But even in their lack of grace there is beauty in the effort, and the desire to go farther, faster and to be better.

I have the desire to go farther, faster and to be better. I'd like to think that I do it with a little grace.

-JP

Great Night!

The Hills are Alive with the sound of huffing and puffing!

The workout was tough, but still it was good!. We started at east 90th street in Central Park, made our way up the east side of the park to the 102nd street traverse where we traversed to the west side of the park.

On the west side of the park we took a right and there we were at the bottom of a long hill.

The drill today, run fast up the hill, then run slow and recover going down the hill. Simple right? I tried keeping count of how many friggin' times I ran up that hill, but I lost count after three. It couldn't have been more than six.

I ran pretty well all the way up to the last one. By the last two, I was feeling a little nauseous and like my brain wanted to escape through my ears. So after practice, I asked Coach Vanessa about this experience.

I told Vanessa, and she replied: "Good, you were doing right!"

Huh? Apparently I was pacing myself well, so I managed to keep a good form and almost last to the final hill. So, that was a good day.

-Jim

7.23.06 Work out Summary

Park Slope, Brooklyn -

It was a great day for running, cool and almost no humidity. Aurora and I did two loops of Prospect Park plus the distance from the park to the YMCA. All in all, we did a little over 7 miles.

Let me tell you it was much easier to do these seven miles this morning than it was to do the 4 miles yesterday morning.

Coming up in about one month is this little jaunt, the first ever New York City Half Marathon. I'm already registered, now its just a matter of getting out there and running it.

All is good. Just spent the evening on a rooftop across from the Greenwood cemetery.

Yeah, it's been a good day.

Run For Central Park, 4 Miles

This was the first race I've run in a long time. That's the finish line behind me. It was a hot and humid this morning (humidity was 93%).

It was a nice race, Aurora and I ran together for the first three miles, just going nice and easy. At the fourth mile, I told Aurora I'd like to push it a little and she encouraged me to go on. So I turned on the speed and had a nice finish.

The best part, coming around the corner to the finish line and having the Team in Training teammates cheering us on. That's a pretty great feeling, if you can get a cheering section I highly suggest it.

May have to take it easy for the next week (even though this past week was the easy week). I'm experiencing a little pain the back of my calf. I think I may have strained something. It doesn't hurt while I'm running, but after ward it's a little tender.

Got any running tips? Feel free to pass them on...

-Jim

July 22, 2006 5:45am

Good Morning Race Fans!

Race time is at 8:30am why am I up so friggin' early.

Well, I gotta have a little coffee, not a lot just a little. I feel good. Just want to get to the race on time. Jeez it's really early. I thought I'd have something to eat, but I'm still full from last night's dinner.

I'll let you know how it goes later today.

-J

July 20, 2006

Work out for the evening

Cross Training was on tap for this evening. I did thirty minutes on the bike, just worked up a sweat really, not much else. Then I did a mile on the treadmill (boring stuff). Then off to the weight room to get totally pumped up.

I've been having a bit of fatigue in my hip and inner thighs during the long runs. So I asked Coach Ramon and he suggested I needed to strengthen those muscles. He suggested these machines:



So you sit in this contraption and open legs.



Then there's this one:





I damn near broke myself with the one on the left. I was sitting in this thing and I pulled the lever that opens the pads just a little too wide. I won't be doing that again.

After those and a few other light weights, did a little stretching and called it a night.

-J

Wednesday July 19, 2006

In effort to take it easy this week, I enjoyed the company of my co-workers for a drink in the neighborhood.

No workout tonight. And yes it is late.

-J

"Easy" Work out in Central Park

July 18, 2006

This was supposed to be an easy workout in the park. It was so hot though, I didn't think I was going to make it.

We started at 90th street on the east side, then turned left at the 102nd street traverse then turned right on the west side of the park. From there we just continued around the top loop of the park till we came back to the traverse and started another loop. Here's the route on gmap.

Some folks got in three loops, some got in four, but I only got in two, the heat and the humidty were a killer.

We were under the very watchful eyes of the coaches, particularly Coach Christine. She was great telling us how different people react to the heat and humidity. The main advice is to listen to your body. If your body says, "hey this is too much, you better slow down," then it's probably a good idea to slow down. She also added that it is very unlikely that the NYC Marathon will have such humid weather.

It was a tough workout this evening, but some days are easier than others.

-Jim

July 18th, 2006

A little moon light run of 3 miles....

I had a little work to do last night, so I couldn't get my workout in earlier. Oh, I could have worked out earlier, but then I'd want to come home, eat, put my feet up. So that didn't happen. I was in the middle of a project and just couldn't tear my self away from it. If any thing develops out of it you'll hear about it here. But this blog is not about that...This Blog is about:

RUNNING!

So I did a little 3 miler around 11:00pm. Ran up to the park, and ran next to the park for a good distance. The only real problem is running down the streets here in Park Slope. The lighting is not so good and amazingly the mommy patrol of Park Slope has not pressured the local politicians to fix the broken uneven sidewalk. But other than that, it was great.

Another workout later today.

-Jim

July 15, 2006

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York

Distance: “Distance, we don’t need no stinkin’ distance. Run for 2 hours… giddy up!”

Today was a break from the, “ok, go run around the park two or three times.” Today the entire team came to Brooklyn for a practice. Coaches too. Many of the coaches were unaware that a passport was not required for entry into Brooklyn. Ah, go figure.

There must have been 1,000 of us, give or take 900 people.

Before we started the run, Coach Christine Luff, gave a little primer on running and nutrition. The jist of this little talk was, you need to eat if you’re going to run for a long distance. One of the TNT sponsors, Power Bar, donated sacks of “sport gel.” I’ll get to the sports gel in a minute.

Ramon, the head coach, got up and gave us the workout. “Go run for 2 hours,” then he added, “oh, yeah, and when you get to this big giant hill, I’ll be at the top where you’ll turn around, run down the hill, and then run back up.” I thought maybe the trip over from New York, had rattled his brain, but then he repeated his instructions. He was serious.

But then, I was thinking, “Hey! This is my house! (yeah I like to get a little street every now and then) I feel good today Ramon, I’ll run this hill, I’ll run up that hill, I’ll run any freaking hill in the park!” Ok, I didn’t say that out loud, but I thought it.

Now the gel: I’ve never eaten sports gel before. Never really had a reason too, well there was that one time over Memorial Day weekend, when TBS had the Law & Order Marathon, but that was a different kind of marathon. I looked through the bag and it was pretty well sorted out by the time I got there. There were three flavors left: Rasberry Cream, Strawberry/Banana Cream, and one lonely Green Apple. First off, exercise and the word Cream don’t really work in my mind. And Bananas; I can not think of another more vile fruit in the world, blech, eew. I went with the Green Apple.

We were given strict instructions to eat this stuff after one hour of running. Off I went, nice and slow. Ding, one hour! I peel the thing open, and splurt it into my mouth. Ugh. It kind of tasted like green apple, but it was so viscous, that it coated every part of my mouth and throat. One of the women that was running with Aurora and I, looked at me gagging on this stuff, sucking down water, said to Aurora, “What’s he doing?” Aurora replied, “I guess he’s trying to get the taste out of his mouth.” Lesson learned here: it’s not about taste, it’s about fuel. It’s amazing how good a few calories and a little sodium can make you feel. I wasn’t hungry that’s for sure.

Practice was hard today. The heat and the humidity really made it tough, but I ran for two hours solid. I’m a little stiff and sore, but I’ll get over it.

-Jim

July 11, 2006
Central Park, New York City

Hill training. Run back and forth 82 to 89th street

Met in Central Park at the lovely Bethesda fountain. From there things got a little ugly.

We took a warm up run from the fountain to the point where we'd be doing our hill training. A 7 block stretch of park where starting at 82nd we make a slow recovery descent down to about 85st. At 85th street there's a slight rise, not drastic but enough. So the training was this: At 89th street, run at 75% capacity, then at 85th St. go to 95% capacity (run like the wind) up to 82nd street. At 82nd street, turn around and jog slowly back to 89th street so that you can recover your breath, where you start all over again.

I managed to squeeze in four of these back and forths, and let me tell you when I hit 95%, I was flying. I even had some else tell me, “you were running really fast.” Yes, that was on the first go, I never got to that speed again. Running all out like that, is really hard on your joints and muscles, plus the technique goes out the window. I was exhausted after doing those. Aurora managed to do five. I had to take time out to get some water with all the runners in Central Park who didn’t bring there own water bottle.

Lessons learned today:

1) don’t run all out. It wastes too much energy and is hard on the body.

2) When bent over stretching, come back to a standing position very slowly. This was actually a bit scary. I was crouched down like a duck stretching the insides of my thighs and groin. When I came up to a standing position: BLACKNESS. I am not kidding, I saw a glimpse of the park, then I saw nothing. I said to myself, “you’re fine, you just stood up too quickly, it’ll pass. The light came back on, for a second, then BLACKNESS. Now I started to panic a little. Luckily Aurora was right there, and I grabbed her shoulder. Then the lights came back on. I really thought I was going to go down, but I remained calm and kept breathing. Lesson learned. All is well.

Sunday July 9, 2006

Workout summary

3 miles in Prospect Park

Nice day, good run. Did I mention I was still sore from Saturday's workout? Yeah, I had muscle joy* in muscles that I did know could hurt. Particularly in my posterior. Sunday morning I almost fell of my chair because my gluteus maximus was a little sore from the all the squats.

-Jim

*muscle joy - this is a term my massage therapist uses to describe muscle soreness after a workout.

July 10, 2006

Injury Prevtion Clinic with the Doctor Jordan Metzl

You know the old saying there are no stupid questions? Well, I may have come up with a stupid question. I'll get to the stupid question in a sec.

This clinic had three speakers: Doctor Metzl, Coach Ramon Bermo & Coach Michael Conlon. Each of the speakers are triathletes and considered elite athletes. Each one spoke to their strength, Doctor Medzel regarding dying on the marathon course (apparently you can do it if you're not careful), Ramon spoke about running technique, and Michael, a physical therapist, spoke about stretching and injury recovery.

The word for the day: Hyponatremia

What does that mean? Low sodium in the blood stream; you ain't got no salt in your body no more cause you sweated it out. All that salt needs to be replaced. The symptoms of hyponatremia are similar to dehydration which is a bad thing. Drinking water will only excacerbate the problem. Lose enough salt and your body will shut down.

There were lots of other interesting topics discussed: stretching, running technique, hydration, new shoes, everything under the sun.

Ok, so on to the dumb question. I waited around afterwards to talk to the Doctor. Here's how it went down:

Me: Hi Doctor thanks for coming tonight. Uh, you know and this is gonna sound crazy but
Dr.: Nah, I've heard it all.
Me: Yeah, well sometimes after a run or a workout, if feel, uh, kind of stupid.
Dr.: Uh, huh.
Me: Like I couldn't add 2+2.
Dr.: Can you normally add 2+2?
Me: Yes in most situations. But it goes further than that, I mean, it's like I'm in this haze. I've almost walked into traffic.
Dr.: Hmm, well, yes. Open your mouth. (he looks in with his flashlight) Yep. You're an idiot.
Me: Huh?
Dr.: No, just kidding. What's probably happening is your experiencing extreme fatigue and maybe a little loss of sodium. Make sure you have a sports drink handy during and after the run.

July 8, 2006
Cross Training in Central Park at 8:00 am with the "Team."

So you know I was up at an ungodly hour to make it to the all team work out. This is what we saw when Aurora and I arrived at Bethesda fountain:

Instead our of long slow distance run we usually do, we did cross training. We managed to divide in to two groups, then those groups divided in two, follow that? So half the team took off for a ten minute “"four points"” run and the other half remained at the fountain for torture, I mean calisthenics.

So Aurora took off for a ten minute run, while I started on my squats. After five minutes of squats, we did five minutes of abs. Total of ten minutes. By that time the runners had returned from their 10 minute run.

Now it was my turn for the 10 minute run (five minutes out five minutes back). We were going to do this four times. Each time we took off for a run we were to run either the southwest, northwest, southeast, or northeast leg of the park.

Now in between those runs we did more “"exercises"” lunges, calf raises, push up, step ups on a bench, and more squats. More squats? Yep, apparently the burn we were feeling by the second round of squats is similar to the burn at mile 23. It was a good workout, hard, and I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow, but it's a good hurt.

After practice the whole lot of us met at a local school for a breakfast. While we're enjoying our bagels and coffee, we were presented with our honored teammates. One of our honored teammates, is Kate Davis, she's four years old. Unfortunately, Kate couldn't make it to the breakfast because she's still in the hospital. Her Aunt was addressing us and said something that really touched me, "When you think you can't run 13 miles or 26 miles, think about Kate who is too weak to walk around the hospital floor. She thinks you guys are super heroes for just showing up to the practices every week." Puts things in to perspective doesn't it.

Here’s Aurora and I after the work out:

BONUS: After practice Aurora and I were walking to the subway and ran into this guy. Yeah, I looked up and I said rather loudly, "“I'’ll be damned."” He was walking with his head down not wanting to be recognized, but Aurora said good morning to him. He jerked his head up and looked at both of us, and replied, "“oh, hello."” It'’s nothing to see stars on the upper west side of Manhattan, shoot I sat next to Al Franken on the subway, and literally run into Alec Baldwin, but this guy? He's not New York at all, so it was neat way to end the morning.

I've been up since 5:45am this morning. There's an all team training in Central Park this morning at 8:00am followed by a breakfast at 10:00am.

Did you know that the sun is up at 5:45am in the morning?

This is what I look like at 5:45am on a Saturday morning:



That's right at 5:45am I have a full head of red hair, which promptly falls out after a quick shower.

More on the practice later.

-Jim

Workout Summary 7.6.06

7:oo am in the morning

What am I crazy? I kind of wanted to go out after work, but I didn't want to miss my run, so I did my run in the am. It's not so bad.

I was out the door and off running through Prospect Park. Since I was running late, I didn't quite do three miles. But it was great running weather, cool a little damp, perfect. And there weren't that many people out.

Did a timed mile and clocked in at just a hair over 9 mins.

-Jim

July 5, 2006

Central Park, New York City

All Team Training...On Cat Hill

This evening the whole New York City chapter met for hill training. It really is an awesome spectacle to see 150 people all in one place for one purpose. And that purpose tonight was to "hill training.

We did a little warm up around the lower loop of Central Park. It was a great evening in the park. It was a little warm, but not too humid. After the warm up we headed for , so named because of this statue that looks down on the park drive:


The beginners were to train on Cat Hill, which is a quarter mile hill with a 49' rise and at 3.7% grade. I don't really know what all that means, but after running up and down this five or six times I have a healthy respect for Cat Hill.

So the focus of this training was to create an efficient stride going up hill. That meant taking a lot of short steps and lots of arm motion (what Coach Ramon calls the "tiki tiki" movement). My first go up the hill I was chatting up Aurora telling her about my day.

That apparently wasn't part of the training. Ramon yelled at me, "this is the hard part, you should be working to hard to talk. Talk on the way down." Then my workout got a little harder. I followed what Ramon had demonstrated, short strides, quick arms, and you know what? Doing all that I couldn't talk on the way up. Going down was our recovery time, talk all you want if you can..

I was chugging along when I heard one of the coaches say, "this is the last one." So when I hit the bottom of the hill I went "full tilt boogie." That lasted about 3/4's of the way up the hill. Then I started to feel nauseous, then light headed, then nauseous some more and then I started to wheeze. I was like what the F-? So I slowed down, way down, and just took the rest of the run to recover.

Lesson learned today? You bet! When I went all out on the last hill, my technique went to hell in a handbasket, which made me work harder, which was obviously too much. I was fine by the time I got back to the team cool down/stretch. But I found my threshold, didn't even know I was looking for it.

Hey sometimes you gotta push yourself right? We have six or seven more weeks of hill training, so I'll have more opportunity to push it.

And now a picture of my feet:

Jim

JULY 1, 2006 WORK OUT SUMMARY 9 MILES TODAY!!

Prospect Park

Really wasn't sure what to expect today. Met in the park for the LSD. Instead of running around the park, we took a little run outside the park. We did a short jaunt down through the park then exited out and ended up running down Ocean Parkway.

Made it to Avenue M where we turned back. Was a nice day and the company was good which made it easy going. I was running with Aurora, Debbie and Kelly. When we got back to the park, Kelly had to do her mentor thing and wait for folks to come back. Aurora, Debbie and I headed back, up a long hill. Mid way through I was feeling a little a cheeky, so I split off from Debbie and Aurora at the Center drive and added an extra two miles to my run.

Total mileage today: 9 miles.

In the words of Ice Cube,"Today was Good Day."