Brooklyn Half Recap: Resilience

I thought of a few differing titles for this post:

“Brooklyn Half Recap: How not to win a race”

“Brooklyn Half Recap: A Comical”

“Brooklyn Half Recap: Lessons never learned”

I settled on this one, though, because after all is said and done, it was truly resilience that got me to the finish line.

Let me start from the beginning, before I jump to the finish line, though.

I signed up for the Brooklyn Half back in April, before I even knew if I’d be healed from my injury enough to run the race. I had moments prior to the race where I freaked out and considered not running it, but in the end I decided I would run it for me. I would run it for fun and to remind myself why I run: because I love running.

The week leading up the race I prepared by totally wearing out my body. Monday I went for a 3 mile run, Wednesday I did yoga for the first time in months and Thursday I ran 4 miles and thought it would be a good idea to walk 7 more as well. By Friday I was still sore from yoga, plus my legs were a little cracked out from all the walking. So obviously, I decided some more long walks to work and such were an excellent idea.

Friday afternoon I met Dara for lunch in Nolita; our last meal together before she moved back to Toronto (insert sad face). We dined at Cafe Gitane.

Cafe Gitane dons modest scenery, yet still manages to grasp that classic “grungy chic” feel. As I had read in online review, the cafe was adorned with beautiful people, the hostest looking like an off-duty model herself. The restaurant was busy for a Friday at 1pm (seriously doesn’t anyone work in NY!?), but luckily we only had to wait 15min for a table.

Dara and I split the Avocado Toast since she heard rave reviews about it:

It was good, but nothing to write home about. I guess what makes it special is it was somewhat interesting and different. It was served warm and the toast has a strong lemon taste that seeps out the bottom half of the toast. When I bit into it, at first I just tasted the avocado, but then my tongue hit the lemon accompaniment and it did add a nice zest to cut the sweet avocado taste. The red pepper flakes on top seemed to be overly strong that day…

Next I got a Grilled Eggplant entree. I like to think I carbo load on a daily basis, so I didn’t feel it was really necessary the day before the race (btw –I will never consider vegetable carbs, I chose to hold my own food pyramid):

Again, it was good, but nothing special. I like eggplant, I like tapenade, I like goat cheese and pesto — couldn’t really go wrong.

During lunch Dara asked me about what I was going to have as my pre-race meal, which to I kind of just laughed because I honestly hadn’t really thought about it. I had kind of already written off the Brooklyn Half as just a long run that would likely result in a 10mile run + walk. Going alone with the excellent preparation for the race, I decided it was a MUST to stop in at the cupcake shop next door in order to get a cupcake to go along with the wine I was planning to have that night.

Yep, cupcakes and wine my friends, fuel of champions. I mean, when in NY right?

Anyways, it being a gorgeous Friday afternoon I thought it would be a perfect idea to really wear my legs out by walking part of the way home from lunch.

Friday night I did stay in (yes score one!) and just watched a movie with the boyfriend (while eating a fresh mozzarella sandwich, followed by wine and my cupcake). However, the movie we watched was terrible, graphic, violent and just awful. I recommend never watching The Divide. Perfect – just what I wanted, a movie bound to give me nightmares when I had to wake up at 5:30am the next day.

By 10:30pm I did finally get myself into bed and went to sleep until my alarm went off at 5:30am. I was a little groggy, but I took a quick shower, which pretty much woke me up. I also showered because I desperately needed to shave — you know, in case anyone was taking a close up of my legs during the race. I foam rolled a little, got dressed in my favorite Lululemon run shorts and a singlet for the Kenilworth Running Club that my awesome friend across the pond, Helen, graciously gave to me.

I really hate getting to races early because I get nervous just standing around, but I headed out my door at 6am for the 7am race and caught a cab right away towards Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The cab was really quick and by 6:20am I was out of the cab and joined the hoards of people walking towards the race corrals.

I also hate standing in my corall alone waiting for the race to start because again I get nervous. Luckily through the magic of twitter I was able to meet up with (and meet in general) Amy! It was so nice to finally meet her after reading her blog for months and even nicer to have someone to chat with before the start.

I have to say, NYRR were quite timely for this race. The announcement that the corrals were closing promptly came on at 6:30-6:40am and the race was off by 7:10am.

I honestly don’t remember the first few miles much, but I do know it took a while for my legs to warm up and I wasn’t totally feeling the run from the start. I’m not familiar with Brooklyn or Prospect Park, so I think I was just kinda of trying to get a grasp of my surroundings and not trip over someone in the hoard of runners. The first 3 miles (ish) were around the outside of Prospect Park. The next 3-4 miles consisted of the inside loop of Prospect Park. I wouldn’t say of it was flat, but it also wasn’t huge hills; more like gradual inclines.

Somewhere in Prospect Park there is a “bigger hill” that I was warned about, but honestly I barely noticed it. I think it occurred to me that I was on the hill when I was already half way up. There were so many runners that it’s kind of hard to see to far ahead and maybe I was just out of it, but I wasn’t really paying attention the elevation. Anyways, I have a hard fast rule that I never stop on a hill, so I shut up it instead.

Around mile 6 is where I started to get scared. Already I could “feel” my knee. Now, I don’t mean pain at that point and it’s hard to explain the actual feeling, but let’s just say I could feel it for the sake of this post. From the past I know that my injury starts out by feeling the knee, then progresses into tightening of my entire upper leg and then a sharp pulling sensation in my knee; which then physically debilitates me from running. Sounds pleasant right? I tried to tell myself to slow down to possibly ward off the entire IT band wrath, but in a race my legs override my mind and I couldn’t really slow down.

By mile 6 my endurance was finally start to feel good and I was mentally feeling into the race, but physically, my IT band was not having it. Miles 7 – 13ish were along the highway, which was closed off, on the way to Coney Island. This was my favorite part of the race. There’s something so exhilarating to me about running through an open street that you know should be occupied by cars. It was predicted to be a hot day and at this point the sun was shining down in full force. My IT band knee pain kept getting worse, but I kept going.

During mile 8 I knew in order for me to finish I’d have to stop and stretch out my IT band a bit. So, I did something I’ve never done before — I swerved over to the side of the road and stopped. I know to stop it seems hard to keep going at times, but to me, stopping is even more of a challenge. I stopped, I stretched…and then I got back into the race, because that’s what a runner does. My knee was still hurting a lot, but it wasn’t AS bad as it was 2 months ago. The main difference being I physically could run on it, whereas 3 months ago I physically could not. There was the voice in my head that told me I should be smart and stop, but I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like I absolutely needed to. I absolutely wanted to, but that wasn’t enough to end this race for me.

When I bent down to stretch I got dizzy and realized the heat was actually getting to me. I  had a few Gu Shot Blocks to replenish and some more water.

From mile 8-9 I kept telling myself I just needed to make it to mile 9 and then I could stop to stretch again; somehow I made it to mile 12 . I think it helped that I had told Beth the night before that I would run mile 11 in her honor because that’s always the toughest mile for me. I was wearing my “Soul Sister” bracelet and thought about my running buddy Kristine and how she wouldn’t want me to stop. I was reminded by the shirt I was wearing of Helen and how amazing running is that it can connect people from different continents that may never have met otherwise. Then I thought about my Mom, my Dad, my Brother, my entire family and how supportive they’ve been with my running; and how resilient my family was as a whole. This may sound sappy, but I thought about how my family has overcome a lot of sh*t this past year; if we made it through those things, I could finish the damn race with a smile on.

Mid-way through mile 12 I HAD to stop and stretch in order to be able to finish out the race strong (…or maybe just finish it…). I stopped a little longer than planned because I stupidly re-tied my shoelace and it took 3 times to get it at the correct tightness.

The last mile, mile 13, I knew I had made it. Only roughly 10min more to go. My legs were tight and felt like they had natural compression sleeves on all the way from my calves to my hips. My hips felt sore and I was focusing on pushing through my glutes to take the pressure off my IT band. I’ve honestly never felt this sore in a race before. I had only trained up to 10miles and I felt like it.

Here I am towards the end, rounding near to the Coney Island boardwalk:

My first reaction when I saw this was, “I look lost.” My lovely friend Beth pointed this out to me though:

That made me feel good. I’ve been reminded many times that if it was easy, everyone would do it. I may have been in pain, but that’s expected. The point was I was still running  and I was still enjoying myself.

The crowds towards the end were wild and really picked me up. I finished smiling because if all these people were going to come all the way out to Coney Island at 9am on a Saturday, the least I could do was smile for them.

My finishing time was 2:10:06. Stops and all, it was still faster than my first half. I had my Garmin on, but I set it to the home screen so I wouldn’t be obsessed with looking at my pace. I seriously did not want to run this race, I am coming off an injury and the Brooklyn Half was purely for me to run for the sheer love of running. However, after the fact I did check out my splits and was highly pleased with myself (note mile 8 and 12 had stops included):

My “moving time” according to my watch was 2:07:49, which isn’t bad for not having really trained and coming off a very bad injury! I know if it wasn’t for the knee pain I could have pushed harder, I had it in me, I could have totally killed my PR of 2:06. I’ll save that for next time

The smartest thing I did for the Brooklyn Half was stop at the medical tent right after the finish line and get my knee wrapped up with ice. I always figured the medical tents were for people with “real” problems, like fainting, death, etc. However, I saw so many people going into the tent that I figured not everyone could be severely ill. I was right, they kindly provide ice for minor injuries

I stopped to take a moment to enjoy the scenery. I took off my shoes and sunk my sore toes into the sand….

On my way to the subway, I snapped a shot of Coney Island the most famous part of Coney Island, Nathan’s Hotdogs:

Resilience: The ability to recover – Yes I think that just about sums of the Brooklyn Half

QUESTIONS: What does racing mean to you? Did you run any races this weekend? How did they go? What does resilience mean to you? Share you’re stories!!! 

Weekly Wisdom, #2

This week I feel like I’ve found the perfect quote that explains where I am and where I need to be:

This week, try just a little harder to keep moving forward. For me this means some career changes; it means blogging a little more; it means rolling/stretching/strength training and other physical activities that will prepare me to complete one of my 2012 goals.

I tend to be a person that’s always looking for instance gratification, instance success, instance fun, but some times you need to crawl before you walk; learn to read before you write a book; ride a bike before you become a triathlete…you get the idea

QUESTION: Do you ever feel like you’re standing still? What can you do or have you done to keep moving forward? What are you going to do this week that will help prepare you for success in the future?

Weekly Wisdom

I’ve been inspired by my fellow blogger’s “Monday Mantra” posts.

So here’s my weekly wisdom and my challenge to myself and you — try to remember this saying in everything you do or want to do or thing you can’t do this week:

I’m not a food blogger, but I DO love food

Recently I’ve been inspired by Dara‘s mission to try as much good food as she can in NYC before she moves back to Toronto. I have a deep love for good quality, delicious food. Not buffet style feasts or diet foods, but GOOD food.  I’ve lived in NYC for about 7 years, but I don’t feel like I’ve tried enough of the tasty treats the city has to offer. So with Dara as my inspiration (and guide for some restaurant picks) I’m attempting to try more new food spots. I’m not a food blogger, but I want to share with you some of my recent “endeavors”…

Brioche French Toast from Kitchentte in Tribeca:

I’m not normally craving sweets for breakfast, but Friday I met Dara and Leticia for breakfast after a 9mile run and I was craving something carb-o-licious and delicious! These large slices of Brioche French Toast with strawberries and a side of maple syrup did the trick. My belly was highly please. Kitchenette an adorable and very casual, which was perfect for an 8:30am, sweaty breakfast with the girls. It’s definitely a place I’d go back to if I was in the area.

Up next, Friday night I went to get my favorite margaritas in the world. Skinny Girl margarita at El Rio Grande in Murray Hill:

My girl friends and I refer to these as “roofy margaritas.” 1 and you’re drunk, 2 and you’re off the chair. They’re pricey ($15 for skinny girl, $10 for regular), but you truly get your bang for your buck. I think this picture explains why I chose to run Friday AM instead of Saturday.

Saturday, the eating fest continued. My boyfriend and I went to Northern Spy Food Co. for dinner. Upon recommendation and web reviews, we order the Kale Salad as a starter:

I’m a little torn about how I feel about the salad. The soft cheddar, sweet potatoes and chopped hazelnuts were wonderful additions. I really enjoyed the salad and liked it for a Kale salad (I usually think of kale as not being real tasty), but it didn’t blow me away. I mean, if I was faced with this kale salad vs. the Blue Crab Crostini at ABC Kitchen — the crostini would win hands down.

For an entree I had Long Island Fluke:

Now, the Fluke I was impressed with. It was perfectly cooked and surprisingly had a somewhat similar flaky (but less buttery) texture to Chilean Sea-bass (my favorite fish). The green stuff is a fava bean puree. The flavors in the dish popped and worked perfectly in harmony. Overall I thought the food was fresh, slightly innovative, high quality and tasty. The restaurant is tiny and has a quaint/East Village atmosphere, but the acoustics were terrible and it was very noisy. I enjoyed my meal and would recommend to try once, but I’m not sure I’ll be going back.

…and lasty, the weekend of food goodness ended with Mother’s Day brunch with the family! We went to Back Forty in alphabet city; this one was actually picked by my brother. We started with donuts for the table:

OMG IN LOVE. Enough said. These came out warm and were smeared with a fresh honey glaze. They were light, fluffy, sweet and delicious. Seriously, the best donut I’ve ever had. I’d go back for these alone, but the rest of the meal did not disappoint. I got Soft Scrambled Eggs with herbs, a touch of ricotta cheese, a tomato & olive paste and accompanied with a warm home-made biscuit:

Note that Back Forty does not make egg whites. However, the portion size was pretty small so it was only about 1 – 2 eggs anyways. I really liked this. Scrambled eggs are pretty simple, but these were just extra yummy and perfectly cooked. Everything on the plate just worked nicely together. I would definitely go back to Back Forty. On top of the good food, the atmosphere is super casual, but trendy/cute at the same time. It wasn’t noisy at all and the staff was friendly and didn’t rush us. Basically hit all my checks for a good brunch spot. They had a nice looking bar too and I love sitting at a bar sipping cocktails.

There you have it, my weekend food adventures! My plan is to keep up trying new places and wonderful foods!

Questions: Share with me your delicious food stories! What’s the best thing you’re ever ate? What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever been to? Any recommendations!??

What’s up this Weekend?

The sun is finally shining and the weather is warming up — this is the time of year where I feel blessed to live in NY (not that it isn’t always awesome, but braving frigid temps in the winter isn’t my thing). I feel like it’s also the start of NYC Outdoor Fitness events! To kick off the season, this Saturday May 12th I will be attending:

It’s an awesome outdoors event that Self Magazine puts on every year in Central Park. The event runs from 11am – 3pm and attendees get the opportunity to try out a ton of new workouts, each for 20min sessions. Check out a preview of the schedule:

It’s supposed to be a gorgeous day to workout in the Park tomorrow and I’ve heard that this event is a ton of fun, I can’t wait! Let me know if you’re attending as well!

Questions: What are your favorite NYC Summer/Spring Events? What are you up to this weekend?? Any other cool things going on I’m missing?

Saturday Fun Run Day!

Want to know one of the best parts about being able to run again? Running dates with awesome running buddies!

This past Saturday I had a run date planned with Dara (who writes an awesome food blog!), followed by brunch with Dara and Annie. Obviously my pending run date early Saturday morning made me really excited to stay in Friday night and prepare properly:

With wine and TV of course. Oh and some “homemade” ravioli in a mushroom truffle sauce (aka a frozen bag from Trader Joe’s). Even if my homemade ravioli did originate in a bag, it was delicious!!! When I first started running, I was afraid to drink the night before a long run. Luckily, I’ve long since expelled that notion and at this point, wine helps calm my nerves and fear that every long run will be the start to a new injury.

Friday morning I happily woke up at 7:30am, had a whole-wheat english muffin with peanut butter, did some foam rolling and headed out the door by 8:05am (like the exactness? I’m kind of a timeliness freak) in order to meet Dara on the West side. Another wonderful thing about long runs? You can meet up with friends from all over! Dara lives in Brooklyn and I live in Manhattan, but during a long run it’s no problem to meet up because the point is to go far anyways!

I met up with Dara about 3.5miles into my run. My plan was to at least run 8miles with an ultimate goal of hitting 10miles. During my 8mile long run the previous weekend, I had a minor freakout, which is why I wasn’t totally setting my sights on 10miles. My freakout was not because of ITB pain. Nope, my freakout was caused by the fact that 8 miles exhausted me and took such an aerobic toll on my body. It’s hard when one day 18 miles feels fabulous and then a pesky injury and a couple of months later, 8 miles is tough. But in the words of the french, “C’est le vie.” Apparently running with a friend was the trick to getting my running mentally back on track. Chatting with Dara from miles 3.5 – 10 made time fly by. I guess I just ruined the ending, but yes, I made it to 10miles! I had a Clif gel with me, but the energy of running with a friend seemed to do the trick and no energy gel was needed.

Around mile 8.5 it started to rain, but it didn’t bother me at that point. I was already planning on going to brunch smelly, why not wet too?  We finished run right infront of Prune in the East Village around 9:55am, just in time to get in line for when the restaurant opens at 10am. Annie met us there as well. Luckily getting there super early (really, who brunches in NY at 10am? Oh yeah, runners) we didn’t have to wait at all, although we were not the only people in line.  The restaurant filled up the second the doors opened, which is partially due to the fact that Prune is tiny. We squeezed into a cozy two person table in the corner and got started with the necessities:

Bloody Mary’s and a delicious champagne cocktail made of champagne and pear brandy. I don’t like Bloody Mary’s so the champagne cocktail was mine. I can’t speak to the bloody’s, but the champagne cocktail was delicious! It was champagne with a slight ping of sweetness and alcohol. Perfect 10:30am drink…

Next came the food. I advise you to visit Dara’s Blog in the coming days to read her review because it will be a lot more eloquent then mine.

I got “Spicy Stewed Chickpeas,” which was 2 butter-crumbed-breaded poached on top of stewed chickpeas in a spicy tomato like based sauce. Flat bread came with it as well:

I have to say it was tasty. The chickpea stew was my favorite part. The eggs were delicious, but a little heavy and buttery for my taste.

Annie and Dara split the Dutch Style Pancake (yes no “s” on pancake) and an omelet and were kind enough to let me dig into the pancake as well . The pancake was delicious, but I’m not sure I’d classify it as a pancake — I’d more consider it a cake in a pan. It was huge and thick, but fluffy and had a nice sprinkling of sugar on top, as well as sour cream and a blueberry sauce.  It tasted like a less dense coffee cake to me.

Overall, I highly enjoyed my brunch meal at Prune, but I don’t think it’s a place I’d go back to and likely would not wait in a long line for it. Honestly, though, food was not the highlight of the meal. I had a wonderful time chatting with my new friends and getting to know them better!

I’m not sure if I mentioned, but I’m running the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 20th. I signed up when registration opened in early April, not really knowing if I’d be able to run 13.1 miles by then, but figured it was worth a shot. I’ve heard great things about the course and I was sad I was unable to run it last year because of an injury, so I didn’t want to be sidelined again. After Saturday’s long run, I feel a lot more comfortable about running the Half and I feel like I’m in a good spot.

Questions: What did you do this weekend? Any fun brunchs/runs?

Back on my Feet and Lovin’ it!

After 3 months of tears, irrational break downs and the harsh realization that my marathon aspirations would have to be post-poned from the Paris Marathon – I’m finally back

I say I’m back with caution as I’ve been injured twice in my less than 2 year running “spree,” but I’m still going to say it because I’m just so excited! Surprisingly the realization that I was finally getting over my injury did not come to me while I was running, it came through the simple act of walking. I was walking home from work last Monday, as I normally do, and all of a sudden I realized that I felt no pain. NONE at all. Walking was never excruciatingly painful with my IT band injury, but it just didn’t feel right/good. Needless to say, I walked home with a smile that day, which is widely unusual for a Monday.

Even after being put out of commission twice from running induced injuries, I still haven’t lost my passion or motivation for running. I’m proud of myself. It would have been a lot easier to just give up on running than trying to get better. Sure, I’ve wavered at times with my love for the sport, but my resilience has always stayed with me. I can thank my parents for that, for teaching me to never just simply accept “no” as an answer. Instead of accepting “NO, I can’t run,” I questioned, “HOW can I get back to running?” I was the answer was easy, but it took me a combination of the following:

• Complete REST (not easy!)
• ART
• Graston
• Rolling like h*ll
• Strengthening
• Stretching
• Icing

I honestly think the rest has played the biggest part in my recovery thus far. Graston and ART were a lifesaver as well and of course I can’t preach enough the power of strengthening core muscles. When I don’t want to strength train I have to remind myself that running is a privilege that I have to earn. 

It’s hard for me to say one way or another if my shoes helped play a part in my IT band syndrom recovery, but I did start wearing Newton running shoes, on the recommendation of a marathon running friend, a little over a month ago  and my leg has felt better since.

Newton Running shoes are designed to help “force” a midfoot landing, which supposedly is the body’s proper alignment and takes pressure off the quads/hips/IT band. Now that being said, they also put more pressure on your shins and calves, so it is warned on their website to slowly wear in Newton running shoes.  I slightly over-pronate, so I got the “stability” version. I bought the shoes in the middle of my recovery, so it’s hard to say if the shoes are to thank for getting better, but all I can say is I’m still wearing them and have felt a lot better.

Being back on my feet, combined with the somewhat warmer weather, has put in a fabulous mood. I feel strong, confident and capable. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my career and following my passions lately and I’m getting ready to finally start making some progress. With the start of a new week coming up tomorrow, I’d like to leave you with my motto of the week: