~ Hairy Eyeball ~

Hairy Eyeball: A glance made with partially lowered eyelids. This usually indicates suspicion or hostility but may signal other emotions too.

Hairy Eyeball Ale
Our New Year’s release for the seasoned beer folks … Big, brown warmer with several types of crystal malt. No actual eyeballs can actually be found in the beer.

I am a hairy eyeball away from throwing up my hands in confusion.

Sunday was the Run as One 4 Miler in Central Park and I decided to sign up for this race and then run 3 miles before the race even started so that I would have 7 for the day.  It worked really well.  I ran the 3 easy in 30.35 and the only bad part was having about 30 minutes in between the 3 miles and the start of the 4 miles race.

It went something like this: (taken from Daily Mile)

The first mile of the race was Cat Hill and I was determined to run up that hill without stopping. DONE. After that hill it was nice and flat and even a bit downhill. I liked that a lot. At mile 3 we hit the rolling hills of the Westside. Didn’t like that too much but I ran the whole way up the hills. And mile 4 was a nice downhill. I stopped at all the water stops which I probably shouldn’t have done. The last water stop at mile 6, I kind of took a longer walk break than I wanted to and it was hard to get moving again to finish up the last mile of the race!

4 Miles 40.50 10.12 min/mile (official time for the race)

Mile 4 10.28
Mile 5 10.10
Mile 6 9.23
Mile 7 10.28

These splits seem odd to me. That last mile was downhill and should have been faster and mile 6 was the hilly part and should have been slower.

In total:

7.04 miles 1.11.26 10.08 min/mile

Yesterday was an awesome bike ride for me.  I went way out of my comfort zone and rode all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge.  Rode over it and then sort of turned around and went back the way I came.  23.07 fun miles.  Just had a blast getting into my own head and also concentrating on riding correctly.  I think this will be a weekly ride for me.

Today’s run was less than happy for me.  It felt rushed and sloppy.  I had to get it done fast because I had a dentist appointment to get to.  Now that I think about it, I should have run after the dentist.  As it is I missed @SpeedySasquatch and crew tonight.   Seems to be the story of my running.  I plan and plan and look forward to things and my life always gets in the way.

Anyway, I banged out a 5k in 29.50 and felt nauseous after 1.5 miles.  Not sure if it was because it was an “afternoon” run and I never do well on these runs.  Or perhaps it was breakfast sitting in my tummy not liking my running.   Whatever it was, it was not a good feeling.

Mile 1  9.22   Mile  2   9.44    Mile 3  9.41   Mile  0.11  1.01  (9.22 pace)

The hairy eyeball confusion is my left ankle.  It’s really becoming an issue for me.  I simply don’t understand this.  After 14 years of virtually zero pain and me exclaiming vehemently, this information out loud many times, it is rearing its ugly head time and time again.  I don’t know if icing it is enough.  I just don’t know.

Do not underestimate the intimacy of running, and the people with whom you share your miles.

Kristin Armstrong, Mile Markers blog, Runner’s World.com