Bed Stuy!

Or, how I realized I really need to start concentrating if I want to even go as fast sometime this year as I did last year.

Beautiful weather. Neat course. Great competition. Except I couldn't bring it. I tried but I failed. And that failure is a direct result of not doing enough hard training. Again. New York is going to be rough.

Gorgeous passed me quite handily around mile four and held on for an amazing win at an amazing time: 39:11! That averages out to a 6:19.2 mile pace! Wow!!!!!

Me, not so much. I was leading for the first part of the race. Then, right around where Gorgeous was passing me, my lungs started to fail. This is not an excuse: Gorgeous is a much stronger runner than me right now and it showed. The first thing to go on me is my lungs and they really went. The bottom part of my lungs started tightening up and I couldn't force the air out. That's the worst part about having an asthma attack, I think: while you can't seem to get enough oxygen, you can't actually expel the air from your lungs, so they are full but constricted but oxygen-free all at the same time.

Anyway, I really wanted to quit, and slowed down for a bit while I tried to get myself a bit more under control.

That's when I got sneak-attacked! A woman who had been running behind Gorgeous came up behind me. During one turn around mile 5, she sprinted past me. Not for much: she was right ahead of me the whole time. In fact, she settled back into the pace that I was going. But there was no way that I could make up that distance, the way I was feeling.
I had gotten control of my lungs a bit again but I knew, if I pushed them at all any more than I was, I would be on the side, puking and having a real issue with breathing. So I let her finish in front of me. Grrrr.

I'm happy that I finished and I'm happy that PPTC had such a good showing for this race. And I'm happy that Suave was there cheering and that I finished around 40 - I don't know the exact time because I was too busy trying not to puke and trying to get my lungs in control enough to take my inhaler to stop my watch at the finish line.

Then, Gorgeous and I ran a nice cool-down on the course, getting more cheers as people thought we were finishing for the first time (oops!) and getting some more miles for the day. Boy, the course sure seemed easier at about an 8-minute mile! I finished with about 10 for the day.

I just need to re-evaluate my priorities. Becoming re-committed to running, to which I have become somewhat estranged, obviously, will mean becoming re-committed to a lot of things that I haven't been good at doing for a while: strength training, a healthy diet, speedwork and the like.

Maybe, just maybe, if I do become re-committed, my speedy teammates will let me run with them sometimes to help me get faster!!!!!!

The rest of the day was wonderful and a lot easier. Saturday's crossword was a bully: had to get some help on this one. But Sunday's was a pleasure, although not as funny as I'd like it to have been. But the weather was perfect for walking around Manhattan and avoiding grading!