It Was a Good Week - Weekly Report #11

I ran in the rain this week. When you run in the rain, you are officially cool. You just left behind all the "wimps" who decided not to run that day because it was raining. You are now "hardcore". You are a real runner.

People who run in the rain are cool.

Yeah, I'm rambling on but it's because, as the title implies, I had a good week. The truth is the minute I got home after the run, I jumped in the shower to avoid getting sick.  Still, a lot of good things happened. The app I use to keep track of my runs, RunKeeper, sent me a bunch of emails letting me know I had done a bunch of stuff I hadn't done before. We'll get to that in a minute but first the bad news.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was invited by a running club (Coquí Runners) to go run with them. I was kind of on the fence because I didn't want to be the slow one who everyone had to wait up for but finally decided to do it and was set to go this past Saturday. Friday night I got a text message saying they were not running that day. So after getting my mind ready all week it didn't happen. I was kind of disappointed but hey, now I got more time to get better for their next run.

Tuesday, October 23 - 4 miles
I started the week out strong after accepting the invitation to run with the club. I was wondering if  my new found "speed" was going to hold after doing a PR running 4 miles the week before. Sure enough, I equaled my PR. Not only that, I didn't feel like I was running that hard so it seems 4 miles is my new "normal". 1:02:48

Thursday, October 25 - 3 miles
The Rain Run. Hurricane Sandy, the now infamous "Frankenstorm" was working its way up the east coast but it was so huge, we were still getting the tail end of it down here. It rained. Hard. All day that day. As night came down, the rain stopped. Again, motivated by the fact that I was running with other people on Saturday, I sure didn't want to skip a run. So I went out. Like in previous runs were rain was an issue, I decided to run 3 miles instead of 4 to keep it short. Also, since I've been doing so well lately, why not try for a PR in at 3 miles? The minute I started running it started to rain again but what the heck? I was committed! (or should be) OK so I was a little worried about my iPod and cell phone getting wet but I just went and ran hard. It was tough and by the end my legs were really feeling the burn but I finished. I had a little trouble stopping the clock at the end as touchscreens become unresponsive when wet (in case you didn't know) so I actually finished several seconds less than the posted time. I quickly got in the shower and when I came out, I had gotten a bunch of emails from RunKeeper telling me I had achieved:

-Best Average Speed
-Best Average Pace
-PR for that 3 mile course

I was wondering if that thing was working. For the longest time, all I kept getting was "Biggest Elevation Climb" which I didn't get since I was running the exact same 4 mile course every time I got that one. Was it telling me I was hopping higher when I ran? Whatever. 44:38

Saturday, October 27 - 5 miles
This was supposed to be the club run that didn't happen. It had been two months since I had run 5 miles which I was avoiding after getting injured, then again avoiding trying to improve my time running a 5K ("race fever" I call it) Well, enough. I got into this to run a marathon! I have to focus on distance not speed. That will hopefully come later. After that run, again I got a some emails from RunKeeper:

-Furthest Distance Ran in a Week
-Longest Duration in a Week
-Furthest Distance in a Month
-Longest Duration in a Month
-Most Runs in Month
-Biggest Elevation Climb (What the...)

That 5th mile by the way, was horrendous but I guess if I compare this run to the first few times I ran 5 miles, it doesn't look that bad. 1:19:27

On another note, I also went to this great event hosted by MASD which stands for "Mis Amigos de Síndrome de Down" or "My Friends with Down Syndrome". My cousin Carlos (Big shout out) has a daughter with Down Syndrome (that makes her my 2nd cousin/niece? Something like that?) and she is one of the most adorable, cutest kids I have ever seen. (my daughters notwithstanding) Anyway, this event is kind of a parade were all these kids are the stars of the show. Each kid brings his own "posse"  that cheers them along and walks with them around this park in San Juan. The kids love it, they get to play and run around the park and since the whole point is to invite everyone you know to walk with them, it turns into an impromptu family picnic. We had a great time. This is the second year I go with them. Since you do a bit of walking and it was HOT that day, I'm counting it as a little workout. Double Bonus.