Monthly Archives: March 2012

Imaginatively Running

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My life is a movie, or rather, I pretend I am in a movie during my life. Sometimes it’s a spy movie, sometimes it’s a comedy and frequently when I run it’s an action adventure.

Why am I telling you these personal things that could and most likely will be used to tease me at the bar after a run? To help you of course. Let’s use my mile repeats from tonight as an example. Friend’s ask, “How come your last repeat is fastest?”

Lets get scientific for a hot second. Below are the repeats.
5:53 – 6:18 – 5:54 – 6:03 – 5:49 – 5:41

To you, these may look like mile repeats, but they are actually scenes in a movie. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Scene 1 = 5:53
Opening credits are over (my warm up) and things start to heat up. I’m headed to the office, I work for special ops and am needed there fast. What could be the trouble? Is it the Russians again?

Scene 2 = 6:18
Turns out my office is at the top of Harlem Hill, go figure. At the office I learn that it’s the Albanians. They have a bomb and are gong to blow up a landmark.

Scene 3 = 5:54
I take off, in search of the Albanians. Our sources say that they are fast, and we aren’t sure if our mark is a man or a woman. I keep moving, scanning everything in front of me, looking for something fast.

Scene 4 = 6:03
It’s getting busy down on the Southwest side of Central Park, but up ahead I see a woman moving at break neck speed. Could it be our mark? I slowly reel her in and then I notice a man trailing her. I don’t want to make my move now, too many people, but this is the guy. We pass the female and play leap frog.

Scene 5 = 5:49
Who is this guy?! Who does he work for?! He looks more Irish than Albanian and I’m puzzled. Was my intel misled? As I try and box him out he realizes what’s happening. “We’re on the same team man!,” he yells. I let him come up along side and he explains the dastardly plot. The Albanians are planning to blow up the Fred Lebow statue at Engineers Gate! “Fuck that!,” I yelled. “We can’t let that happen!” Our speed picks up and he doesn’t look good. “Go on without me, I’ll be fine, just stop the Albanians from destroying Fred’s statue!”

Scene 6 = 5:41
I have 1 Mile and no time to get to Fred to stop the bombers. As I start swinging my arms I ‘rev’ up (think… the sound that the Delorean makes when Marty breaks 88 MPH) and blast ahead.

Every movie I have ever seen from ‘Top Gun’ to ‘Bullitt’ is racing through my veins. I summoned every ounce of energy I have left to rocket forward, stopping those foolish Albanians.

I pass people looking like a crazy sweaty Irishman, panting and hanging on for dear life. I see the Fred Lebow statue in the distance and as I pass him I have beaten the Albanian to the punch and saved the day. Also, that was my best mile split, U.S.A. wins and I win. ‘Win win’ I believe they say?

So… I encourage everyone to live your run in a movie, and in the last scene kill it!

The Albanians used in this story were fictional. Christopher Baker holds no bias towards Albania, Albanians or Captain Lou Albano.

 

The Galway Bay Gallop

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What do runners do on St. Patrick’s Day? We integrate beer into our running.

Maura (who is from Galway) designed a very fun and difficult race for the Rogue Runners called the Galway Bay Gallop. The race was an out and back, 4 miles total. The catch? At each turn around point you had to either take a shot of whiskey or chug a beer, 3 drinks in total. The prize purse was as follows: a bottle of Irish Whiskey, a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, or a delightful package of Irish smoked salmon sponsored by Galway Bay Seafoods.

The next day was the NYC Half Marathon so a lot of our friends weren’t running in the Galway Bay Gallop. Also, since I was to be cheering all day during the Half I decided to get in my 18 Miler before the race. This was a poor decision.

Abbe and I showed up at the 102 Transverse to find a group of 15 people preparing!

In order to make Rogue Runner races fun, handicaps are put in place to equalize the playing field. Maura took everyone’s 4 mile race time and set up wave starts. I got to start last with a 14 minute deficit on the leaders. This is why maybe doing an 18 miler before hand was stupid. My poor legs did not feel like running at all.

At Maura’s command the first group, led my Tracy, started chugging their beers and were off. SIDENOTE: We were all really concerned with getting pinched by the cops. I later learned that it’s only a $25 ticket and not jail time. Game on.

I think there were 9 runners total. Matt6 and I were the last to go. As he set off chasing the pack I still had to wait a couple minutes to start, a difficult task considering Matt6 is no slow poke.

With 1 minute to start I prepared my Porkslap Ale. As Maura counted down to zero I attempted to chug my Ale. I’m not much of a ‘chugger’ really, never have been, so I just drank quickly. After my tasty beverage I set of with a running fury. I immediately felt like my chest was going to explode from all the carbonation! I was run-burping along the West Side Rollers, not really enjoying myself. It was quite painful in fact, not just the beer in ma belly, but trying to trick my trashed legs to run again. Clearly, my body was like “Hey Baker, we already ran today and were super excited when it was over. What’s the deal?”

As I was running I kept looking way ahead, wondering when I would see the first group on their return trip and the impossible task of trying to catch them.

It wasn’t long. Tracy appeared about 1.5 miles into my first leg of the race. She was cooking too. We laughed and high fived.

Soon after I saw a small group trailed by Matt6. Ironically, just as I was feeling good I was arriving at the second ‘Aid’ station to drink my next drink. Abbe, Claire and Erica were awaiting and cheering me on. They had a beer prepared, but in the interest of time I yelled to them that I would do a whiskey shot instead. Abbe prepared the concoction and I downed it, chasing after the group.

In case you have never run in Central Park, the West Side Rollers are no joke. Having to do them twice was brutal. Using my blurred eyesight I was constantly scanning runners ahead of me looking for my targets. Son enough I saw 2 of the gals from the original lead group. I passed them and shouted hello, continuing my search for the leaders.

By now the booze had numbed the pain in my legs enough so that I was actually trucking along at a decent pace. I rounded the bend into the transverse and saw the group chugging their final drinks! I had come in 7th Place. Tracy had held a great pace (she even had a 2 minute PR) and won the overall race!

After all the runners were in Maura had a fantastic awards ceremony. So many fun prizes! In the interest of St. Paddy’s Day we all went out for a couple more beers to celebrate. Thanks for organizing this one Maura, it was great!

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Congrats to all my peeps who ran in the NYC Half Mary the following day! Especially to Abbe, who rocked a 30 minute PR!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring-a-ling

Posted on by Posted in All, Fitness, Training: Cycling, Training: Running 1 Comment

Being a February baby, I tend to really dig winter. Snow, ice skating, and not sweating on the way to work. However, I am also an endurance athlete so I have really enjoyed the non-winter aspects of this particular winter.

Saturday I had a 3 hour trainer ride queued up, because my coach thinks it’s winter here. But guess what? The gods have been smiling down on us as of late and it was 55 degrees! You better believe I rode outside!

I blasted around Central Park and on down into the Financial District. On my way back up, zig-zagging across town and back again, making sure all my favorite places were in tact, I decided to eat some pizza. Not just any pizza, I wanted some of the best pizza NYC has to offer. I have been here 12 years and have a very specific opinion on everything, especially food related topics.

SIDENOTE: Back in the day… we used to go to Doc Holiday’s Bar every Tuesday night for ‘all u can drink beer’ for $5! Cheapest night in ol Manhattan hands down. For dinner we would go to Nino’s Pizza beforehand on Avenue A and 8th Street. Its some of the best pizza in New York and you can argue all you want with me, this is truth.

The cool thing about Nino’s Pizza and bikes is that they have a take out window! I rode right up – Drive Thru Style – to order my pizza. This older guy greets me with a smile and a “My friend! Where have you been!” It was the same guy that used to serve me my pizza years ago. I explained that drinking my face off on Tuesday’s nights doesn’t fly these days for me.We chatted while I ate my slice then I went on my merry way.

I decided to digest before continuing my ride, so I walked up to 14th. Another cool thing happened as I was walking. I had my track bike with me instead of my Tri bike as the workout didnt call for shifting of gears or brakes. Crossing the street this messenger kid with his track bike looked at me, then down at my bike. He then said, “Hey, that is a beautiful bike!” I smiled and thanked him.

The end of my day was spent walking around my new neighborhood (I’m moving in a month or two, but it’s still the same general area) with a bowl of ice cream. I strategically stayed on the sun lit sides of the street, basking in my sunny ice cream glory.

Go Saturday!

Sunday was spent doing a progression (long) run. “Oh what’s that? It sounds fun!” It’s not. It’s pain in long increasing doses.

I warmed up then started my run maintaining 7:30s. It was a beautiful day in Central Park once again. Next, 45 minutes later, I picked it up to 6:45s. Oh, now we’re having fun. Then, another 45 minutes later I picked it up again to 6:15s for 15 minutes. Get it? Progression. Yes, pain progression.

All kidding aside, I loved this workout. Boston is coming up fast and I need to be ready.

Ah New York, such a great city. I also found out today that my screen printing teacher from art college (who was awesome) is a runner and is friends with some of the Runner Army! Small world right?!