I’m feeling “off” today. I had to force myself to sleep last night, and when I woke up this morning at 5:20 a.m., I wanted to continue sleeping. Maybe it’s the work happy hour I went to last night where my colleagues complained about their jobs and I started to resent my own job, even though I like my work and coworkers. Or maybe it’s the muscle soreness I felt throughout the last two days, a product of increasing the amount of weight I’ve been lifting with my legs this past week. Or maybe it’s the increase in mileage as the marathon approaches. Or maybe it’s that my girlfriend has worked every single day for over three months and I barely see her during the week. Or maybe it’s the hard run from NP_NYC PR Day (LINK).

(Spoiler alert: It’s obviously a combination of all those things.)

These “off” days always come after a string of triumphs. Just last week I noticed that my maximum aerobic running pace had increased, and that I felt more comfortable on the roads in the wake of my injury. I had come to accept the things I disliked about my job, and become more productive as a result. In the gym, I had increased how much weight I could lift with my legs on all exercises. And hey, even if my girlfriend has been working a lot recently, we’ve shared lots of quality weekend time.

Leave it to me to turn all that progress into negativity!

But anyway! What do we do when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and hate everything and everyone? We run! And what happens when we run? We feel a little better.

Nothing really sticks out from the run. It was a pure Maffetone workout consisting of 12 minutes warming up at a heart rate below the bottom of my aerobic heart rate zone of 135-145 beats per minute, 6.2 miles of running in my aerobic heart rate zone, and 12-15 minutes of cool down. The park was quiet enough that I could hear crickets around the Harlem Hill, and I finished up on West Drive near 65^th Street feeling pleasantly tired and ready for more.

The run makes sense to me: stick to the plan, one foot in front of the other, don’t stop until you’re done. When the plan stops working, reach out for help, tweak it if necessary, keep your head down and have faith. I love the simplicity of it. The rest of life seems like total chaos. Not the getting up and going to work and making dinner and sleeping and routine stuff. No. I’m talking about the uncertainty that pops up (at least in my life) at every turn: the friend who needs a few minutes to talk about an issue in his life, and the uncertainty around whether you helped him in any way; the train that decides not to come, making you even later to work; and the existential questioning that arises when you realize that you want to do something different with your time, but aren’t yet sure what that thing is or how to get it.

So, today I will take my own advice from my running and apply it to my life: stick to the plan, one foot in front of the other, don’t stop until I’m done. When the plan stops working, reach out for help, tweak it if necessary, keep my head down and have faith. And, on top of it all, embrace the uncertainty.

Also, foam rolling for the muscle soreness.

UPDATE: In a move that demonstrates how weird yet awesome my Mom is, I get this text from her around 10:15 a.m. from Ocean City, MD:

“Would you wear this? On sale.”

I obviously said yes. Looks like I’ll be swimming in style.

For those who don’t know what November Project is, it’s a free fitness movement composed of really positive people who support each other on their fitness and running journeys. The group meets on Wednesday mornings at 5:28 and 6:28 a.m. near Gracie Mansion at 86^th Street and East End Avenue in Manhattan, at 6:28 a.m. at a rotating location on Fridays, and at Wards Island (across the river via the walking bridge from 102^nd Street on the east side) on the last Wednesdays of the month. Everyone cheers each other on through the strenuous workouts, which generally include about three miles of running combined with pushups, burpies, dips, squats, and core exercises. I started going about a month and a half ago because my sister, Katie, got into it through her friend, Sarah. Now I’m into it because, hey, why not wake up at 4:30 a.m. on a Wednesday to run around the City?

The first Wednesday of every month is “PR Day.” PR day is a chance to gauge your endurance progress by running eight loops of a set course, which totals approximately 3.5 miles (each loop being just under half a mile). The loop starts on the greenway adjacent to the East River at 86^th Street (identified as Bobby Wagner Walk on Google Maps) and proceeds north toward Gracie Mansion before turning west and up a tiny stairway with long, low-inclined steps. The loop then proceeds to the corner of 88^th Street and East End Avenue, and then south to 86^th and East End Avenue before turning left and running down a grotto and, at the end of the grotto, up a set of stairs that are too narrow to take two steps on each step, but too wide to take one step. Hop up five steep steps and back onto Bobby Wagner Walk, and do it seven more times.

This was my first attempt at the PR course. I wondered all week if I should run the course slow, or if it would be better to get in some anaerobic training as I get closer to the NYC marathon (woohoo! super excited). I made the decision to run hard, but not at my absolute maximum, as John, one of NP-NYC’s leaders, gave the course directions. “Leave something in the tank,” I thought. “Don’t use up your reserve energy.” The sun had not yet risen.

And so we started. The first fifth of the loop is downhill, so I shortened my stride and let gravity help me along. I talked a bit with Paul, the group’s other leader, but that was short-lived when he pulled away from me as we ran past Gracie Mansion and out toward East End Avenue. I would stay by myself in “second place,” if you can call it such (it’s a training run, after all!) for the rest of the eight loops. I checked my Fitbit: heart rate already at 159 beats per minute. Almost anaerobic already.

As I hopped up the steps onto Bobby Wagner Walk and began my second loop, I formulated a plan for the rest of the run. I would hold at my pace for the next five laps, and on lap seven I would pick up the pace. By lap eight, if I were able to hold back throughout the run, I would be tired but able to give a final burst through the finish. I got through the second loop without any issues, and felt good when John, who calls out times when runners start their next loop, called out “5:24” for me.

Loops three, four, and five were more of the same, although I felt myself slow down a bit. I might have pushed a bit too hard on the first loop, and underestimated the toll that all the steps at the end of each loop would take on my legs. I began passing some of the other runners, and when I wasn’t breathing hard I tried to yell out encouragement. I’m sure my, “Good work!” and “Keep it up!” came out more like, “Gereerrrrd wuuksfdghg” and “Kerrrep’t oomp.” Caveman compliments.

Lap six felt good, and I picked up my pace as expected on lap seven. I could feel the end of the run coming, which always motivates me to push harder. “Seven more minutes and you can stop.” “Six more minutes and you’ll get some water.” Finally I hit lap eight and felt my legs kick into a higher gear. When I hit East End Avenue, my body felt light and easy, so I upped my speed and reached the steps in the grotto and took most of them in one stride each. “Twenty more seconds and you can rest,” I thought as I hit the middle of the steps. And then it was over. 22:34. Automatic PR. The sun had just started to poke its head over the horizon. It’s really beautiful on the east side at sunrise.

After a short walk to catch my breath and drink some water, I stood by John and cheered on the other runners. My sister, asked me to run with her for her final lap. She had run her first two miles at around a 9:00 pace, which is a vast improvement for her and super cool. We made it through the last loop and up the steps, and she was happy that she had run well, but thought she started too fast (a common theme for the day). Either way, good work by everyone, and it’s so cool to run with other people who, like me, are crazy enough to get up at 4:30 on a Wednesday to run around the City.

We took yearbook photos for the NP-NYC Facebook page, which I will repost here when they become available online. I look ridiculous, but that was the point! More to come on that.

Here’s a picture of my awesome friend Ashley, my sister, our awesome friend Sarah, some random dude who photo-bombed us like a boss, and me after we finished:

I wake up before the sun rises. I grab a quick snack before strapping on my shoes and then out the door to the Strawberry Fields entrance to Central Park. I start my Fitbit and ease into a fast walk down the hill and onto West Drive. Cyclists whir past, most of them either in cycling team jerseys or leaning over their aero bars.

My Fitbit shows that I have walked half a mile. I start a slow jog, raising my heart rate to 115 beats per minute. As runners pass me, I listen to their labored breathing as I inhale and exhale through my nose. I round the bottom of the Loop and head north. The smell of horse manure is strong. A couple is standing on a bridge overlooking what will soon transform into a skating rink. Without my glasses they appear pixelated and generic. I check my Fitbit. I have traveled a mile. I accelerate up the gentle slope, heart rate inching up to 130 beats per minute, then 135 at the top. I push harder as I approach the Summer Stage. 140 beats per minute. I check my cadence: about 180 steps per minute. I breathe through my nose every four footfalls, and out for the next four.

Cat Hill slows me down. I check my Fitbit: 143 beats per minute. I need to stay under 145 to keep this run as aerobic as possible. Two months ago I would have been crawling up this hill, waiting for my right sacral ala to re-fracture. Today, however, after almost three months of training slow using the Maffetone Method and almost five months of near-exclusive aerobic base-building with swimming and cycling, my legs keep moving and my mind is clear. 145 beats per minute at the top. I pass some runners.

Now I’m running downhill and then slightly up as I pass the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then down again and then flat as I run next to the reservoir and up East Drive. I accelerate and watch my Fitbit hold steady at 143 beats per minute. I am running below a seven-minute per mile pace, which feels great for running at approximately 75% of my maximum heart rate. I could never have done that before I got injured, and I would not have even cared. My philosophy had been “train hard, race harder.” Under my new philosophy of “train slow to race faster,” I had already PR’d at the Percy Sutton 5k with a time of 18:24, a minute and ten seconds faster than my time at the Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5k in March when I was running hard on every training run, trying to build speed before I had developed an aerobic base.

I fly down Harlem Hill and run alongside the north side of the park. It’s always a little quieter over here: Even some of the guys on their $5,000 TT bikes avoid the big hill. I’m heading up now, heart rate still hovering around 143 beats per minute. My stride shortens, and my cadence increases slightly. I slow down when my heart rate hits 146 beats per minute. I’m halfway up. I’m passing a few people on bikes. I can see the top. 142 beats per minute. Pick it up. 143. 144. Top. Downhill. Pace picks up again.

I could keep going, but that’s a good summary of what goes through my head while I’m out on a training run. I’m generally thinking about my heart rate, cadence, and listening to my body. It reminded me of this article in which researchers studied what marathon runners think about when they run.

This summary also demonstrates why I love running: It’s one of the only activities during which I can maintain complete focus on what I’m doing. I get distracted at work all the time. I can barely sit still while watching TV or eating dinner. Give me free time, and I will fill it with structure out of fear of the unknown. But give me running, and all that matters is putting one foot in front of the other and improving one step at a time. I understand it intuitively. I am calm.

Of course, I have some days where I want to skip a workout, or I finish feeling worse than when I started, but those days have almost ceased to exist since I have begun training slower to race faster using Dr. Maffetone’s method. The phrase “everything you’re doing now is to prepare you for race day” often echoes through my head, and it keeps me focused. I am not running just to fill the time. I am running because I want to race as well as I can. So, I try to make each step matter.