Missed a week

Apparently I never posted last weekend. Let me regale you with a quick summary of that week - I set a 1-mile PR (personal record) with a time of 6:59 in the Fifth Avenue Mile, my seventh of nine qualifying races for the 2010 NYC marathon, and did a 9:00/mi 5K the day before that and a 9:12/mi 6 mi long run the day after.

Did you know that a donation of $50 could register one person to be a bone marrow donor? We're more than 20% of the way to our goal, but we need your help! Find out more at: http://bit.ly/jewsforjogging.

I've been using my new Asics Gel Kayano 15 sneakers. I got them a couple weeks ago. Until then, I thought my Brooks Adrenalines were great. It turned out I was wrong. They're good, but the Asics provide a lot more cushioning, and that's important, because my stride is godawful and I hit the ground hard. For a week or two I was using the new shoes every other run, but for my birthday, I got a second pair, so now I can rotate between the Asics for running and only use the Brooks for bicycling (next spring I'm going to upgrade to clips for bicycling). Why rotate? It's good to give running shoes a few days between runs, to allow them to fully dry out and retain their shape better.

Something amazing and incredibly rare happened yesterday. Beth complimented me. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. She and our other friend came in from Chicago for my birthday and stayed at my house, so Beth and I did our long run this weekend together. Her schedule said 8 miles, mine said 6, so we split the difference. After we finished, at a 9:13 pace, she told me that she found the hills to be pretty brutal, and was impressed that I run near my house all the time. Ahh, to live in the midwest, where the main geographic feature is the horizon...

I'm pretty sure she also admitted that I'm a much better person than her, but don't quote me on that.

See you next week.