This has been a pretty strange weekend, for me. Not strange in a bad way, just different. I think that the rain today might have something to do with it. We had a huge day full of activities planned today, but as it stands, I have only made it outside today for three quick tasks. 1. Moving the car (when I shot the photo above); 2. taking our friends’ dog (below) for a walk (we are dogsitting, while they are out of town; and, 3. to do a quick and wet 4m. run. Other than that, I have been helping Reagan shoot another tutorial for her hair blog. Right now the battery is charging, so that we can do one more.

I suppose that I can take comfort in the fact that we had such a productive day yesterday. We had our long run in the morning, for which we incorporated the Summer Streets event. Summer Streets is when the City shuts down Park Ave to auto traffic, so that peds and bikes and ride all the way from 72nd St. to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a really cool run. Apparently the training is paying off, too, because Reagan and I both felt fine afterward.

We headed up to see  Piper after grabbing some lunch. It was a cool visit, because one of our friends came with us, who was meeting Piper for the first time. We talked about Piper  and how proud we were of her accomplishments, for about 4 hours straight, hahaha. It was one of those overzealous proud-parent moment, that ended up being a lot longer than a moment. We didn’t get any photos of her, this weekend. Actually, Reagan snapped some really cute ones on Friday that she will probably share. But I didn’t get any.

I hope that everyone else had a great weekend.

Someone is barbecuing in our alley. It smells delicious.

This photo is for reference, only. I had to dig it out of the archives to help with the visual. I was probably 18 in that photo, taken by my brother Sam in our parents’ basement. It was one of those nights where we were making fun of SJ cowboys and documenting it.

Flash forward to yesterday. I had about a week and a half of facial hair going, mostly out of sheer laziness. It was time to get rid of it, so I shaved it into a handlebar mustache just like in the photo above, before hopping in the shower after my run. The only purpose was to make Reagan laugh, which she did (nervously). I had intentions of shaving completely before work this morning. I was able to carry out that plan, but not before taking a run down the west side path.

I woke up totally forgetting about the trucker ‘stache and hit the trails. Along the way, I came across a couple of friends who started laughing when they saw me. I was confused for a sec, until they complimented my handlebars. Hahahah.

About 10 minutes later, I caught up to this dude running in moccasins with duct tape on the bottom, who had stopped to be a good Samaritan and remove a dead rat from the path. To myself, I was like “oh man, I have to talk to this guy.” So I struck up a conversation with him, and we ended up running about 6 miles together. I learned that he is almost 50 and lives in my neighborhood, that his name is Barry and he grew up inspired by Prefontaine, but had only started running again recently after adopting the minimalist approach to footwear.

Barry is awesome, I wish that I could have kept going with him. When it came time for me to turn around and head back up town, I thanked him for the chat and said that I hoped to run into him again. Almost immediately afterward, I remembered about my mustache. Hahahahah. He probably just thought that I too, was inspired by Prefontaine.

Tuesday, I dropped back by the piece that Os Gemeos are working on. This time, I was able to chat with Gustavo (above) for a while in Portuguese. I can’t tel you how great it was to chat with a Brazilian that has a proper Paulista accent (not to mention that it was cool to chat with him regardless dialect). He said that they are going to try to wrap this piece up by the end of the week. So, I’ll be back by there, probably tomorrow to shoot the finished product. The image below shows the progress, as of Tuesday afternoon (Moody Blues, anyone?).

I’m still not feeling 100%, but I can’t really take much more of a break from running, and expect to stay sane. If it isn’t raining tonight, I plan to resume with the training sched.. I’m a bit nervous, after taking a full week off. Thankfully my long run, slated for Saturday is only 14 miles. I will have a week to get back into the groove (Madonna, anyone?), before my 20 mile run next weekend.

The part that I’m really looking forward to, about the next two long runs, is that Summer Streets is currently in full effect. So, instead of doing my usual out-and-back down the Hudson River path, I can do Park Avenue, instead. Should be a blast, and a much welcomed change of scenery.

But, the biggest thing on my mind/load off of my mind, is that all of the nerd-stuff that I have been chipping away at for the last week and a half is finally resolved. Everything is now back in a relatively maintenance free stasis (fingers-crossed). I feel like I can finally get back to real life, and it isn’t a day too soon, because I am super behind on EVERYTHING.

Despite being ill, I went for a run Wednesday night, against my better judgment. I definitely paid for it. I felt like death, when I got home, then woke up the next day even more congested. Today I’m feeling a bit better, but I’m going to play it safe and wait until Saturday to pick up again with the training. Cross your fingers for me, that I will wake up tomorrow sans congestion.

Even though this was a relatively uneventful week, I’m really looking forward to the weekend. The biggest reason is because I haven’t been able to see Piper since weekend before last. I’m really excited to go spend some time with the little cutie, this weekend (I hope she still remembers me, hehe).

We have a couple of other fun items lined up for the weekend. Friday night, our friends Shakedown are playing at Pete’s Candy Store in Bk. Hopefully we will make it out to see that one. I actually used to play bass with them until Yoko, AKA Reagan came along and they had to throw me out, Hahahaha. Just joking about the Reagan/Yoko thing– mostly.

Saturday night, there is a b-boy battle at the Altman. I’m picturing various scenes from Style Wars, and hoping that Saturday night ends up being as cool as the movie.

Photo:  an e.5charlie koozy that I scored at Cargo, last week. They have some sick new stuff coming out in for the fall season. You can get it through their site.

This week’s grade= A. Total distance for the week was 41.6. I broke 800 miles on my Nike profile, this week, and I am now only 189 miles away from completing my goal of running 500 miles before next January. Highlights for the week include the Father’s day 5 mile race, and the Wall Street 3 Mile race. As of last Sunday, I now have enough race credits for automatic entry to next year’s NYC Marathon. I have to say that I’m feeling like it was a pretty productive week, in terms of running. April, I’m still working on the nerdy graph to make people like running. Hopefully it will be finished soon. Hahaha.

I know it was only 3 miles, but it was really hot and I had to fight traffic HARD at the beginning, since it was a free for all (no pace chutes). 6’24″ pace is 5 seconds per mile, better than my previously recorded official NYRR time. Progress feels good. 3 girls still finished ahead of me. I’m ok with that.

Distance: 3.0 Miles, 4.9 Kilometers
Date/Time: June 24, 2010, 6:45 pm
Location: Financial District, NYC
Weather: 87 Degrees, 57% Humidity, Wind 15MPH, Clear.

Total Finishers: Men – 2555 Women – 2506 Total – 5061

I really really hope that Reagan blobs about how the race went for her. Because it is freaking hilarious.

Well, most the day went as planned. We still have fish, since the dude who is supposedly picking them up, has now scheduled and flaked on 3 separate occasions. Complaining aside, today was ultra productive. Tomorrow is going to be another busy one, but I’m looking forward to it. Particularly, I’m looking forward to the AHA Wall Street 3 mile race in the evening. The finish line is quite literally steps from the entrance to my (work) building. How convenient is that? I also like the idea of running in the evening, especially such a short race. I won’t have to spend the first two miles waking up.

In other news, I think that I finally sweat-ed my iPod to death, today. I have shorted it out on previous occasions by over-sweating. But it would normally start working again, once it had a chance to dry out. No such luck, today. RIP De Jpod.

Anyway, enjoy a couple of shots from the Brooklyn Museum. Anyone– please feel free to put a “Ruben and Ed” quote in the comments about Andy Warhol. The week is half way over, hooray.

Hello, I’m happy to report that I earned an A, this week. It was my first week of training for this year’s NYC Marathon (only 19 more weeks to go, hehe). Training started Monday, So I could have slacked Sunday. But notice, I didn’t. Also, most of the routes that I do nearby my house, are loops, so I don’t always have the exact distance that I need. As a result, I did an extra half mile both Monday and Tuesday. The graphic below represents my scheduled runs (in light blue) with my actual run overlaid (in darker blue). This morning I woke up at 5:30 to get my blood going before tackling the 14 mile run. I was planning on taking it easy. I felt so good right from the start, that I ended up being almost at race pace, averaging 7:07 minute miles. Plus, the weather was so beautiful this morning, it was really hard not to be excited about being out there running. I’m only scheduled to run 3 miles tomorrow. Too bad I’m registered for a 5 mile race! Hahaha. I plan on taking it easy though. Yay, my first A! Hahahaha

I’m thinking about having this image tattooed on my chest and back. That way maybe it will be easier for illiterate people to figure out why I’m vibing them so hard when I pass them on the bridge. I’m also thinking about starting to lobby for a the GW to adopt the approach that has been taken by the Williamsburg Bridge. Ok, in reality, I probably won’t get any tattoos or do any lobbying. But it was nice to vent for a minute.

First of all, I didn’t even score myself last week, because I didn’t run at all. Since I earned an F-, there wasn’t really anything to evaluate. This week, I did slightly better. The weather was a lot cooler, so I had no excuses. Otherwise, I may have earned a little bit better than the D+ that I’m slapping onto this week. The two midweek runs were really short, and Today’s run was half-hearted. This will be the last week of anything below a C, though, unless I’m injured. I say this, because Monday I start a 20 week training program for the NYC Marathon in the fall. So, I’ll be running 4 times a week, at a minimum with at least one of them being 14+ miles. It is a pretty lengthy training period, I know. But I have never formally trained for any of the marathons that I have completed, so far. So, I figured that I may as well go for it. Let’s see if I still like running when November rolls around. Hehe.

Since we are on the subject of running– Today was an NYRR club points race, for the ladies only. It was a lot of fun to just go and cheer on Reagan and the rest of the ladies on our team. Below: Reagan in the finish straight.

Below: Paula Radcliffe coming out of the starting gate (not competing, just showing support for the ladies)

Here are a couple of fun shots of our female teammates with Kara and Paula. It as a really fun day.