Slacker. That’s what Lesley Higgins aka @le_diable called me yesterday for running 13.5 miles (8:38 pace) instead of the 14 that I proclaimed on the way out the door via Twitter. Doh. I really have no defense: my watch either freaked out or I forgot to start it after I ran into a teammate on the Bridle Path in the midst of my mid-distance run. The latter is more likely. We ran together for probably about 1.5 when he trailed off as he was done w/ his 13. I looked down at the watch and expected to see ~3.5 miles, instead I saw 1.7 and nothing moving. Idiot. I miscalculated the loops and ended up 800m short. Gah! I’m an idiot.
Anyway, it was a solid run. I got out before the warm (not crazy warm, but warm enough) weather hit us. It was a solid effort … 1-water break at 8+ miles for GU. I tried a new flavor – Strawberry Banana. Tri-Berry had been my flavor of choice, but it has not been sitting right in my stomach lately. No noticeable effects yesterday. I’ll probably start experimenting again with different brands.
On the way home, I grabbed a protein bar to get something in my system ASAP, which was quickly followed by Gatorade. While the run was not intense, I still decided on an ice (water) bath. I grabbed my stocking cap, mittens and sweatshirt and descended into the tub of cold water. I’m a wimp. After the initial 30 seconds, I felt fine. I even made it to 15 minutes. Saturday concluded with gluttony at a local BBQ spot – Dinosaur. I brought a strong appetite to the table and destroyed even more than what you see below:
This morning I popped up at a ridiculous hour – 5:12am. No clue why. I didn’t have any out of the ordinary amounts of caffeine. More than likely, my system was still in shock over the amount of food consumed at the restaurant. Today, the temps are expected to hit upper 80’s so I bounced out quickly … but not proclaiming intended mileage. Ms. Higgins does not suffer fools lightly 
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I switched it up and ran thru the park over to the Upper West Side to partake in hill work. It’s been more than a week since I did any repeats so it was time to get back to bid-ness. I ventured to a spot I was very familiar with as we used to take the little ones to this playground when we lived on the UWS. I remembered a particularly steep hill (a major challenge to push strollers up and down) and recently read about it in a local running magazine. Hippo Playground’s gradient is 6% or 2x as steep as Cat Hill and 33% more steep than the worst that Harlem Hill has to offer. It’s short (150m) so it is perfect for sprinting. I hit it for 7 repeats at ~20 seconds each w/ a walking return to the start. They felt good … by #5, the legs were jelly, but that’s the point … to work it out.
I’ll get much more acquainted with Hippo as the summer progresses. The morning concluded with a trip back to CP and a spin around the outer Reservoir Path for a total of 6 miles (8:33 pace).
Now we are off to the Bronx Zoo so I can ridicule all of the obese people sucking down nachos, cheese and soda. Sweet.