2006 numbers

The last day of 2006 has finally come. Out of curiosity, I wanted to add up all the miles I've run this year. Although I use SportTracks to keep track of my runs, I generally don't record the runs I do without the Garmin, or those done on the treadmill. Thankfully, I was able to go back through the blog archives, and find most of those runs. I've added them to my SportTracks history, and I was able to come up with the following graph.



You can see that the early part of the year was unimpressive. (Though to be fair, I was swimming and cycling in the gym.) Then the next few months I had a few more races, and the mileage went up. Then I really slowed down in the summer, until the fall when I started training for the Philly Half.

All totaled I ran 422.5 miles in 2006. I know that's not too impressive to "real runners", but the number still sounds pretty good to me.

I've always been jealous of those runners who've kept track of their lifetime miles. It's kind of late for me, but I'm going to start doing that. As my base I'm including this year's 422.5 miles. I also looked up last year's marathon training schedule, and I recorded 363.6 miles there. Add to that the 26 miles I did in November and December of last year, after the marathon. Finally, I've run 84.8 miles just in the races I've recorded since 2000. (I have no idea how much running I did to train for those races, and I did run two half marathons in those years.) So just with all the running that I have recorded I have 897 miles to date. That's going into the sidebar as my lifetime miles to date.

Also going on the sidebar is my new weight loss goal. As I've mentioned before I'd like to get into better shape. I'd recently set a goal in my head, which corresponded to about 20 pounds in 20 weeks. (Reminiscent of Adam Tinkoff's blog, for anyone who reads that.) Sadly, it's now looking like 21 pounds in 19 weeks. In any case, I'm adding a button to my sidebar which will be updated as I update my progress on Traineo. I'm hoping this public announcement of my intentions will help keep me on track.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy Holidays

Hannukah is over. I got 3 presents this year, which is way more than usual. (Well I also got 3 Chirstmas/Holiday presents at work. But I gave about 14.)

Anyway, I'm not complaining, I like my gifts. My best gift was a scale with a body fat calculator. (Ok, I asked for that one. I suppose it would have been insulting to get a scale if I hadn't asked for it!) For now, I've just been looking at the results with mild interest. Starting in the new year, I'm going to get serious. I'm not really fat, but I'm not in racing shape either. I'd like to take off 20 pounds in the hope that my legs will hurt less with my training. That's the plan.

I ran twice last week, 4 miles each time. Yesterday (as documented in the previous post) I ran 9 miles. It was really a glorious day. Sunny, and in the 50's. I ran in shorts and a long sleeve technical shirt.




Whoever said all you need for running is shoes? I've got my tech shirt, my tech hat, my hydration belt, my Garmin watch, my iPod, my camera, and my beeper. In the belt I've also got Sports Beans, and my keys. (Would you believe that with all that I forgot my cellphone? Fortunately, I had checked with both the on-call resident and my answering service before I left, and I didn't get paged on the run.)

Crazy, huh?

(I'm actually sore on my left hip. It may be from my beeper, but I really didn't notice a problem while I ran. My camera, which is much larger, was on the other side and I'm fine there.)

That's it for now. Just in case there's anyone left who hasn't seen this clip, I'm embedding it here. It's an instructional video on what Jews do on Christmas.



Just in case, you don't believe this, it's true! (Unless of course you're a doctor. Then you're on call.)

Happy Holidays to all!

A tour of my running path

I brought my camera on my run today.


This is probably boring to most (or all) of you, but I run this route pretty often, and so I thought I'd "photo-document" it for once.


I'm including a map, just to orient the following pictures. I ran a little extra in the beginning so that I'd end up with 9 miles total. The red mile markers are starting from a bus stop 5 minutes from my house, where I often start from.


mile 0: Pelham Parkway
mile 0.4: the stop light where I often get stuck


mile 0.5: more Pelham Parkway
mile 1: going over the highway


mile 1: Hutchinson River Parkway
mile 1.3: going under the I-95


mile 1.4: bike path
mile 1.6


mile 1.65: the rock at the edge of Pelham Bay Park
mile 1.7: heading up to Shore Road


mile 2.1: drawbridge on Shore Road
view from bridge


another view from bridge
I really like this shot. Throgs Neck Bridge in the distance.


mile 2.4: The Bronx Equestrian Center
mile 2.5: path continued. (horsepath to left)


mile 2.8: short trip through "forest"
mile 3: edge of Pelham Split Rock golf course


mile 3.1: more golf course
mile 3.4: golf course in distance


mile 3.8: beyond golf course
water on opposite side is part of Long Island Sound


mile 4: path veers away from highway
mile 4.1: a little more "forest"


mile 4.2: almost at the end
mile 4.25: Park Lane in Pelham Manor (Westchester County)

... and then of course I have to run back!

Hannukah Hustle

I think there's a race with this name in Toronto somewhere, but believe it or not, this doesn't exist in New York. So just a regular training run today.



I ran a little more than 8 miles this morning. Yet another beautiful day today, and I ran in shorts and a long sleeve tech. (And a fuel belt, and a Garmin, and an iPod!) I kept my splits pretty even, and pretty easy.



I've been thinking about another half marathon, just to have something to train for. I'm taking some time off from work at the end of January, and the Miami Half has crossed my mind. Also, the New York Road Runners seem to be tinkering with their half marathon schedule. In the past, the Bronx Half was in July, and the Manhattan Half in August. Last year they moved Manhattan to January, and put the inaugural NYC Half into the August slot. The 2007 schedule is now slowly coming online, and Manhattan is on January 21, with Bronx on Feb 11. The pros of staying local means I might have a little more flexibility with my vacation. The races will also count towards the 9 races needed for guaranteed NYC Marathon entry. The cons are that they are just another race, and they don't come with a nice technical shirt, cap, or medal. (Of course, they're also only $11 to register!)

So that's what I'm thinking of. I figured 8 miles was a good distance for today, no matter what. I'm not too anxious to build up too quickly, as my legs were feeling really tired in the last training cycle.

In other news, I've got a Bat Mitzva tonight, and a Hannukah party tomorrow. (It's the same as this one from last year.) I think I'll be joining the masses with some weight loss resolutions in the New Year!

Oh, and one more thing. Sorry about not doing any of those memes going around. I'm not so into the meme and tagging thing. Although I must admit, I was tempted to do one. There's a "holiday" one going around, that was modified to fit Hanukkah. Here's a link to the first person to modify it.

Happy Hannukah!

For your viewing pleasure (8 days only)!

I guess not!

Granted I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I can't remember the last time I didn't get a single comment on a post. So either my last post was just so boring that there was nothing to say, or for some reason bloglines didn't get it out there to people and/or people have stopped looking over here.

(The truth is that there have been some interesting things in my life recently, both socially and professionally. It's just that I can't really blog about them. Sorry.)

One nice thing that happened to me this week is that a patient I took care of earlier in the year came back with his daughter to drop off a gift. The details are complicated but I did do a lot for the patient and his family. I think what was really nice was that I hadn't spoken to either of them for 3 or 4 months, and so I was quite touched that they remembered me.

In terms of running, I did make it out this morning for a little over 2 miles. The operating room called in the morning and said they'd be available early, so I had to cut it short. Tomorrow I should have more time, and I hope it won't be raining too badly.

I'm not really training for anything right now, and that always makes things difficult. I have a few ideas in my head, but I haven't made any commitments yet. I'll keep you all posted.

Miss me?

It's been two weeks since I posted, but at least it's only been one since I ran. I'm not sure how last week totally got blown, but the cold weather had something to do with it. (That, and my laziness.)

I've really been slacking since the Philly half. I did some speedwork last week, and 6 miles on Sunday. Then this week nothing, until another 6 today. I was actually supposed to race this morning, but my friend had a baby boy last week, and guess what? Another circumcision for me to attend. (I should really start actually doing them, so I can make some money while I'm there!)

So anyway, once I was done stuffing my face after the ceremony, I finally dragged myself out to run. It was a perfect day for running. Another one of the students here was interested in running, so I met up with him. I probably would have bailed on the running if not for him, so I was glad he came. The only trouble is that he's like 6-foot-15 or something, and definitely faster than me. He tried to slow down and let me set the pace, but I definitely found myself pushing harder than normal. Combined with the week off, I was really struggling towards the end.


Note the really positive splits. Not my usual set of splits. Compare them with those from last week's identical run:


(there's often a bump in mile 3 related to my turning around, and the GPS not recording that point correctly.)

Anyway, it was good to get back out there. I'll have to get a few short runs in this week to try and maintain my fitness.