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After the nice long run I had in Delaware park earlier in the week, I decided to try driving to the park again and doing my entire planned 5 mile run there again. Unfortunately, when I arrived the park was packed with visitors and I couldn’t find a parking spot to fit my truck into. There were so many people there that instead of parking parallel to and on the side of the road, cars were parked perpendicular across the one lane of the loop running the park’s perimeter (it’s a double wide road, but cars are only allowed in one direction). Some googling after I finished confirmed my suspicions it was the Buffalo Zoo’s annual Wines in the Wild event (the zoo is located in one corner of the park).

Disappointed I couldn’t run the entire run in the park, I headed home and began my run from there. I ran a regular route of mine to, around and back from the park. After having seeing a turkey and juggler on stilts during previous runs, I’ve come to expect to see things out of the ordinary, but was still surprised that this week I ran past a tight rope walker in the park! He’d strung a rope of some type from two trees in the park and was traversing back and forth between them. I can only wonder what I’ll see next…

Monday was supposed to be my long run for the week. The schedule called for and I was looking forward to an 11 mile run. As luck would have it, right as I put my running shoes on, the rain came down. I was discouraged, but waited it out for a while & and finally decided to get the run in once it lightened to just a drizzle. Fearing heavy rain or lightning might still come, I decided to do something a little out of the norm for me – drive to Delaware Park and run the whole distance there (normally I run to and around the park). By running the 1.8 mile loops around the park, I’d be close to the truck if I had to leave in a hurry.

What a great night for running! The temperature has been in the mid-80s the last couple weeks here in Buffalo, but was a comfortable 68 when I arrived around 7:45. Occasionally the wind picks up at the Park and annoyingly blows across the golf course, but there was none that night. The only other weather condition that could have made it better was a light rain. Low and behold, a mist began to fall. The park is normally packed with people, but this night is was almost empty. There wasn’t a soul on the basketball courts & very few cars. At the most I saw 5 or 6 people during the entire loop around the park. Between the lack of people, the mist & the approaching night, it was a bit creepy, but I felt like the entire park was mine.

Without look at my watch at all, I ran the following splits:

• 7:27
• 7:43
• 7:47
• 7:47
• 7:49
• 7:52
• 8:00
• 9:47 (included a water break)
• 7:48
• 7:52

Overall, those splits add up to a 7:58 minutes/mile pace!
It’d been a long time since I felt as good as I did at the end of that run – not only for a run, but in life in general. I set out to do something & did it well – accomplishment. The fast pace came to me without putting forth much effort & I felt like I had more in me when I was done. The week before I ran 11 miles at a disappointing (to me) 8:29 overall average pace. Besting it with a run like this is the type of thing that inspires me to challenge myself by running distance. I thought about doing another two miles for the sole purpose of seeing how the time would compare to my half marathon last year, but forced myself to stop (plus it was getting dark).

I look forward to the next long run, but don’t expect such a quick pace and know that the weather had a lot to do with it. I may very well head back to the park for long runs though – being close to the truck is nice not only if I have to leave from bad weather, but in case I get paged for work.

Today I finally cracked double digits and did a 10 mile run. Total time was 1:22:15, an average 8:14 mile pace.

I’ve been contemplating running the Rochester half and Niagara Falls full marathons, or the full Rochester marathon, but had some serious doubts. Today’s run felt great. I didn’t push any of it and wasn’t hurting at all during any part of it. In fact, I know my true average for the run was actually under an 8:00 mile the whole way – right before the end of mile 5 I ran into a guy from my soccer team and stopped to talk to him. Eventually I stopped my watch, but the mile still clocked in at 10:44.

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Today was a hot one. It hit 91 this afternoon, two degrees shy of the record set in 2005. When I left the office in Amherst just after 5, the truck thermometer read 92. A couple miles away along the Niagara River, it dropped to (a mere) 84. Back at my apartment a mile or so off the river, it climbed back up to 88. I find it amazing how much of affect the river can have. I waited until 8:30 to head out for a run, but it was still around 82 at that time. It didn’t drop any by the time I got back just shy of 9:30.

I did one of my tougher runs today – down Delaware Ave past Chippewa Street to Niagara Square, back & some zig zagging around the apartment for a total of 6.5 miles. It’s full of hills the entire way, something which I had shied away from when I was training for the 2005 Rochester Half Marathon, but now conscientiously seek. My watch indicated I averaged 8:14 minute miles across the run (53:33). I was plenty happy with that pace in this weather and had nothing more left in me at the end.

As it was hot out, I made sure to weigh myself before and after I left. The scale said I’d lost a pound from the run. I was a little puzzled at first – believe it or not, that actually felt like it was a little too little. A while later I realized I’d drank two 20 ounce bottles of Gatorade after I got back – I’d really lost 2.5 pounds!

I headed out this past Monday to get a run in. I had a lot of things going against me – it was 85 degrees out (at 8:30!), I hadn’t done a run since the past Saturday and I’d just returned the day before from a 4 day long bachelor party. I ended up only doing 4 miles in 33 minutes – a rather short distance, but still at an average of ~8:15/mile. I was not happy and realized I need to dedicate more time to training.

I typically run between the back side of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Hoyt Lake. It’s a beautiful area with lots of trees leading to it from Lincoln Parkway and lots of people gathered there. I’d seen a juggling group that gathers outside the Rose Garden many times, but never knew who they were. This week, one of them was on stilts and was juggling on stilts with flames! Turns out this group is the Buffalo Jugglers.

As I was out at my mother’s place last night, I decided to check out MapMyRun.com to choose a local route to run. I’d traditionally used Gmaps Pedometer for such tasks, but it hadn’t been cooperating with my browser lately & I’d heard several folks mention MapMyRun.com. I planned for what I thought was about 8 miles, but ended up doing 9 miles in 72 minutes. (more…)

Last night I ran the 2007 Buffalo Coporate Challenge. I participated as a member of the University of Buffalo team and was accompanied by three co-workers from my department – nice job Jim, Stew & Andy! I finished with a time of 27:07 (for 3.5 miles). I’ve created maps of both the pace and elevation from my Forerunner 201.
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