if it feels okay, then you're doing it wrong

so today was a little harder.

i know why. it's from a few less than stellar decisions over the last 24 hours. we had clients in town, and so we had a gluttonous dinner complete with too much wine and a few nightcaps. i could have at least said no to the nightcaps. needless to say, i didn't sleep that well. then today, one of my pal's at work had a great idea to go for dumplings in chinatown for lunch. yum. like everyone else that isn't chinese, we ordered way too much food at a neon-lit hole-in-the-wall place on mott street. it was really good. but it was NOT a lunch of champions. looking back, i really am not sure what i was thinking. it was around my third soup dumpling that i realized that they should be called "grease dumplings" instead and that i was an idiot for eating such heavy stuff before i was going to have to run 3+ miles. i have made better choices than today.

this was also the first time trying to get from tribeca to the upper east. that turned out to be the relatively easy part. i hustled my way over to the lafayette/canal stop and the 6-to-the-4 combo got me uptown in about 20 minutes. we dropped our bags at the store where i got my sneakers at monday and headed over towards the reservoir at 90th st.

so the work out today was to work on the form of our arms. the reason is that because "what the arms do, the legs follow." i didn't quite digest this big of information when i heard it, but the words would echo in my head later. basically we were to count off and run 3 lightpoles "on" and 2 lightpoles "off". when we were "on" we would be exaggerating the movement that your arms are supposed to make - essentially swinging only from the shoulder, at a 90-degree angle, wrists loose, keeping your shoulders back and your elbows always behind or level with your torso. a lot to think about. when we were "off" we were to recover at our normal pace. the distance would be 3.14 miles. it was supposed to feel weird and wrong, the idea being that our bodies will learn the motion and eventually we'll tone it down and apply it when we're running. in the past, whenever i'd seen someone jogging with wrist flailing about, i have always giggled to myself. and now, i too would become an arm-flailer. ~sigh~

at the beginning, i thought - no problem, what's a little arm swinging going to do! well, let me tell you. remember the remark i was just talking about? "what the arms do, the legs follow." well, when you're swinging your arms like an idiot, you speed up. the longer the stride of your arms, the longer the stride of your legs. so really not only were we just learning arm positioning, but we were doing speed intervals. for 3.14 miles.

having charlotte was especially helpful today because she took the roll of "positive encouraging" running parner while i sat back and whined a little bit. i don't do it often. but today was one of those days. we did make it out alive with minimal walk-breaks, red-exercise-face (me), a talk with the coach (her), and a few beers with the rest of the team afterwards.

so what i've learned is that i don't operate well with: a hangover, no matter how moderate; a belly full of dumplings or other, similar, heartburn-inducing food; and fitful sleep. i'm seriously considering a no-alcohol policy for the day before i run, no exceptions, but i'm going through a little withdrawal just thinking about it, so i'm going to keep it in the "maybe" pile.

on the positive side of things: my new sneakers rock, i am so very happy with them, they're like running on marshmallows; and i'm freaking thrilled that i've already raised over $1,000!! it's very exciting.

okay, time for bed. i found the BEST thing - basically a google map where you can chart your run and it tells you the milage. my sis is going to run with me in the morning and clearly i need my zzzz's so i'm not as cranky tomorrow. check out tomorrow's route.

today's milage: 3.14
total milage to-date: 10.94