Weekly Wrap-Up: The Late Edition

I know, I know, I've been slacking a little bit on my weekly wrap-ups. Unfortunately, now that it's football season, my Sundays have been spent in a haze of buffalo wings, cheap light beer and bad lighting at the bar rather than gallivanting around town on my long runs. Football really puts a hamper on my training.

Anywho, this weekend was a doozy and I feel like I didn't sit down at all. Oh wait, that's because I didn't. Really, sometimes my weekends are longer than my work weeks. I spent Saturday at work teaching a CPR class and then headed out east with SJ to celebrate Chadman's birthday with a few pints and college football. We spent roughly 5.8 seconds at the Stony Brook game before heading back to the bar - damn NCAA rules and their no alcohol policy!

Sunday, SJ, mamadukes and I were up at the ass-crack of dawn (again!) to catch a ride into the city with the other Tunnel to Towers runners. We met up at headquarters at 5:30 and were on the road into Manhattan by 5:45. I was supposed to be getting in 15 miles that day, and seeing as how T2T is only a 5k, I had some catching up to do. Luckily for me, the vans were parking in Manhattan so I was able to do a nice little tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn before meeting up with everyone back at the start of the run. Amazingly enough, in a crowd of 30,000, we were able to meet up with this guy:

That's Greg and his woman before the run. He ran in full turn-out gear, boots and all.

The race was cool and I'm glad I was able to experience it, but I'm also glad that I got 12 miles in beforehand because I don't think I ever got my heart rate elevated above Zone 3. I'll write more about it in the race recap (that hopefully won't take me eight years to get to!). After the run, we met up with the rest of the FD runners, grabbed some pizza and made our way across town to Hotel Eileen to shower and change before Shannon and I's fundraising event at Amity Hall.

It was a super successful day and we are totally appreciative of everyone that came out in support of us. We can't tell you how amazing it is to have so many people contribute to such awesome causes and your donations will definitely be able to change lives. If you weren't able to come, have no fear - click the link on the right of my page and you'll be able to donate directly to the fund!

After many beers and many laughs, SJ and I made it home at a respectable 8:30pm and were asleep by 9:00. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday!

Since my main focus now is on the marathon, I have decided to forgo most other forms of cross-training. Unless I have the time or my legs are exceptionally shot after a hard running day, I probably won't do any major bike riding and seeing as how I've slacked off all summer on swimming, I can't see that I'm suddenly gonna go all Michael Phelps on your ass at start putting in 10,000 yard weeks. So my weekly wrap-ups will start to focus solely on running. Sorry to be boring, but at least you only have to put up with it for five more weeks.

Total Miles Run: 44 miles. I credit my 19 miler and 15 miler this past week for getting me over the 40 mile marker. I didn't do any speed work, though, which I will have to rectify this week. However, I leave on Thursday afternoon for Ragnar Washington DC so I'm not quite sure when I will be squeezing this speed work in.

Top Honors of the Week: I earned my black badge on Wednesday night, which means I am now halfway qualified for interior firefighting. I have now earned the right to pack-up for car fires, dumpster fires and basically any fire that doesn't involve being inside a structure.

The only thing I have left to do is lose the orange helmet.