never stop running

when i was younger and sillier, i wanted to engrave that on my ipod. in the typical esther fashion of not thinking through consequences, i used to set out for hours-long runs with just an ipod and maybe some cash to buy water, no warm-up, no stretching, no sense of direction, usually under-dressed, bouncing rather than moving forward, and had the time of my life. for yesterday's long run of 20 miles, A and i ran the first 10 together and then he decided to be responsible and get some work done, so i put on the ipod and set out on my own, this time having warmed up, stretched, focusing on better posture and the "moonwalk" running style that A taught me, and had a fantastic time. autumn is gorgeous, new yorkers don't know what they're missing out on. i noticed that my energy level for the 2nd 10 miles was relatively high, meaning that: a) my 1:30 runs should really be faster than i had thought and/or b) sleeping all day does a lot for one's energy levels. i was focusing on keeping the arms moving forward rather than across, since that has been a pattern in my race pictures, so i did a silly thing and kept my index fingers pointed forward for most of the run. i'm not sure if A noticed b/c i was behind him most of the time. finally, i felt like i was moving forward. i looked/felt like a cowboy drawing his gun all the time so it is a good thing i didn't find that too embarrassing.. in fact i just may do that for philly. "who's that retard who keeps pointing in front of her? does she not know where she's going?"

speaking of philly, i'm not quite sure what the goal is. since first marathon time was 4:28 and second was 3:37, i would be happy w/anything in between. under 4 would be great, 3:45 would be really great, between 3:37 and 3:45 would be even better, under 3:37 would be awesome and under 3:30 would be endorphins for the next week. i'm not sure how the run will go. for ny, i had decided to shoot for under 4:00 so picked a pacer for 3:45 and was worried that that was too ambitious. the pacer disappeared after mile 6 and i luckily had made a friend by then (interestingly named) armand, a tall dutchman in a tracksuit sweating and turning red but had a good pace. i remember worrying that we were going "too fast" on our mile pace for 3:45 but just kept hanging on to our pace and ended up being glad that the pacer got lost. so i wonder what will happen this time if i just hang on.

a lot of running this week, and i'm enjoying it immensely although sitting on the trainer last wednesday did a number on my sit-bones...such an old lady! hills on saturday w/ A, sb and todd was more tolerable than the week before although i need to remember not to eat breakfast before hard runs. todd's homemade oatmeal chocolate granola something cookies were a welcome treat. i missed fb (and actually had worn warm CLOTHES so "mom" wouldn't nag me) but she was too busy being a party animal! swim the friday before w/ sb, fb and claudia was also nice and relaxing. our pool is quite nice, hairball and all.

today i gave TNYA a try- they swim at baruch college on Mon/Wed and it's actually a 25m pool rather than 25y so it feels better. the people at tnya today were friendly, not cranky-competitive (as opposed to fun-competitive which is ok) and on top of that i get a whole free week! i'm tempted to ditch the running thing and just swim until thursday. hooray for a.d.d.!