I ran a personal best at the Brooklyn Half-Marathon on Saturday! 2:19:00. The funny thing is that I felt like I was running very slowly, and I stopped for frequent walk breaks.
This is the first time I haven’t slowed down drastically at the 7-mile mark. Instead, I stayed consistently slow throughout.
It was a beautiful day for a race: not too hot during the race, and sunny and warm when I finished at Coney Island. I spent a few minutes wading in the icy Atlantic, which is supposed to help keep muscles from aching.
After the race, pizza and the aquarium.
I tried an experiment on Tuesday’s run in Central Park. I decided to say hello to everyone I passed going the other way, for about a mile. Out of 20 or 30 runners, only 5 were not wearing earphones. Only 3 said hello back. One of the earphone women gave me a look that I interpreted as disgust when I said hello. I suspect that it was actually an attempt to smile that didn’t go so well.
I have never run with music, and although I was given an ipod, I never use it. One of my singing students, upon hearing that I don’t use an ipod, asked me, “don’t you like music?”
Yes! I like music. I like music so much that when I want to hear it, I go to a concert or a dance or a jazz bar so that I can hear it as it is being made. I prefer my music fresh out of the oven, rather than canned! I love it when a band is playing during a race, but I don’t want to carry the music with me in a little box. I want my ears available for what’s going on in the world. The wind in the trees, overheard conversations, dogs barking, a greeting from another runner.
Do you carry music around with you? When do you listen to it?
May 29, 2011 at 7:49 pm |
I like to walk without headphones/music, though if I walked more on treadmills/sidewalks around a lot of cars, I might want headphones w’ some music at a reasonable (low) volume.
I don’t run a lot.
July 23, 2011 at 10:38 am |
I take my music with me sometimes when I walk/run, but mostly I’d rather listen to birds and squirrels and watch out for cars and bicycles. I do like music when I need to keep up/pick up my pace – Playford dances, bluegrass, Irish session music.
It is odd that everyone seems to be out there plugged into their own private universe and thus unreachable..