February 13, 14, & 15

We go to Philly most weekends. I grew up there and about five years ago I bought a house there--a weekend place. Our house is a few doors down from my sister's place. She had twin boys (Aidan and Liam) two months before I had Kieran. We call the three boys the triplets. My getting the house nearby was partly a desperate attempt to give Kieran a sibling experience without my actually producing more children--which would have been tough since I had him when I was 42. TMI, sorry. Where was I? Oh, right. Philly. So we went down this weekend and discovered that our house was buried in four feet of snow. It was hilarious trying to get up our unshoveled walk with luggage and a sleeping seven year old at midnight.

So all the snow forced me to the dread treadmill. As I've posted before, Stuart thinks it's hilarious that I'm on the treadmill at Chelsea Piers nearly every day since I'm on record as hating running on the things. But our snowbound roads and trails forced me to embrace the Necessary Evil. I'll make this quick since even writing about running on a treadmill is boring.

Saturday: I ran 10 miles. I admit I picked that distance because 10 because gave me a 50-mile week. Not smart. Repeat: not smart. But I'm still an occasional slave to mileage. Stuart thinks I should get over my round number fetish. Easy for him to say--he runs 80 miles a week. For my first 5, I averaged about 8:20 pace. For the second 5, I averaged about 7:50 pace. For the second 5, I kept pushing the pace ever mile or half mile until I was sub-7:00 at the very end. The only way I got through this was through music: the first 7 thanks to Velvet Underground, the last 3 thanks to The Vapors. Yes, The Vapors.

Sunday: Long run day. I ran 15. This was my longest treadmill run ever. I averaged 8:30 pace. My playlist--too extensive to bore you with here--may be the first ever to range from the Velvet Underground to the Real McCoy.

Monday: The combo of the hard 10 followed by the steady 15 kicked up an old injury. I'm not even sure what the injury is--it's on the outside of my left foot, below the ankle. Not quite the Achilles, but maybe. Anyway, it was soar and I had to coax it into cooperation for an easy 10K at 9:13 pace. Musical guests: the Velvet Underground and Rick Springfield. Capped off the day with an hour-long spin session at Equinox with Chris Griffin.