Legs Don't Fail Me Now

Only seven weeks left to the NYC Marathon, and I still feel a few steps behind in my training. But my mind is catching up, and the legs seem to be obeying.

My training schedule is practically out the window, or at least I've given up all hope of adhering to it strictly. Instead, I've taken heart in my mileage and consistency improvements. Three training runs last week, including a West Haven 14-miler, after the solid 14-miler in Salem, Mass.

This time, I packed a couple gels so that I didn't collapse halfway through. My schedule called for an 18-miler, which would have been unthinkable without some prepackaged energy boosts. I still finished four miles short of the goal but felt good in the 14, stopping only a couple times for water.

The West Haven route has become one of my favorites, even though the back seven never fails to stump me, whether because of heat, sun, wind, rain, hills or the stench coming from the water treatment facility around mile 11. Otherwise, it's a mostly flat route that reaches the beaches near the Milford town line around mile 7 and then follows the shore.

I plan to use this as the base route for my longer training runs, which are supposed to hit 20 miles in two weeks. My standard West Haven route is 14 miles, but I can tack on several more simply by taking a few extra turns on the tail end, in particular kicking out onto Long Wharf along the New Haven Harbor. And I've found a water fountain at 9.5 miles, which will come in handy.

Even so, 26.2 miles is a daunting thought. We'll see how I feel about it in two weeks.

New Haven Road Race Turns 31

The annual Labor Day jaunt around New Haven is one of the preeminent races in the Northeast. Only eight years younger than the NYC Marathon, the 20k New Haven Road Race also doubles as the national championship race in that distance and draws plenty of big-name runners each year.

And on a local level, it's just a great way to see the city in all its variety, from the boutique shops on Broadway to the harbor waterfront along Long Wharf to the sidewalk Spanish of the Fair Haven neighborhood to the quiet woods of East Rock Park.

Monday was the 31st running of the race, featuring a special tribute to Ryan Shay, the young distance runner who died in the Olympic trials last November in Central Park. His father, Joe, said a few words before this race, thanking the running community for its support. Ryan was a past participant in the New Haven race, and his wife won the women's competition last year.

Then with the crack of the gun, the runners were off. The course goes through just about every neighborhood in the city, and in addition to the official water stops, many residents set up their own unofficial stations to pass water to the runners and cheer them on. The route is mostly flat, with some gentle ups and downs, which makes for a fast course. World records have been set here.

The sun, however, is the great equalizer, and turning up East Street somewhere around mile eight, it was tempting to reach an arm out toward the men standing outside the corner bar with their beers and hope they'd hand off a bottle — liquid defeat.

But just as the twists and turns and heat and sore feet start to wear a runner down, suddenly the route turns into the shaded East Rock Park. A short uphill gives way to a longer descent, providing a burst of confidence that culminates in a left turn across the Mill River past a band of bagpipers and toward the final straightaway down Whitney Avenue.

Finally the finish line appears in the middle of the New Haven Green, and post-race refreshments range from bananas and bagels to little ice cream cups. And as a final reward, perhaps knowing what temptations had been resisted along the way, a beer distributor has a van set up serving runners free cups of a deep-amber brew. Beer never tasted so good.

Face Full of Dirt Part 2

It has been an abysmal week or two for my marathon training. Missed days. Shortened runs. Slow paces. And one wild Monday night spent checking out a band at the Bowery Ballroom, which, though terribly fun, set my body back a few days.

Then there is the pesky root-and-rock-covered path in New Haven's East Rock park that attacked me again on Thursday. Head over heals again. Scraped up my knee again, this time enough that I had to take off my T-shirt to soak up the blood.

It's such a great route through the woods along the Mill River, but I might have to give it a pass for a while until I figure out what's going wrong. The knee can't take another spill like that, and I'm running out of T-shirts.

Face Full of Dirt

New Haven can be a rough city, and I'm not talking about the gunshots, crumbling neighborhoods and packs of panhandlers.

I'm talking about the giant tree roots on the trails at the base of East Rock. One of them attacked me Monday about four miles into a 10-miler and knocked me down on the puddle-covered path. I wasn't far from the waterfall at the north end and could have shouted to the summer camp kids there for help: "Help, help, camp kids, help, runner down!" Instead, I jumped up, inspected the wounds on my wrist, forearm and both knees and decided that I wasn't mortally injured and had been maintaining too good of a pace to lag now.

Unlike the trails up the hill, the trails around East Rock are flat and meandering, an ideal running route through the city park's gentle woods. And other than the roots and rocks, there aren't many obstacles, though, I admit, that playground turtle by Orange Street gives me the creeps.

Downtown Among the Elms

There are many methods for measuring the New Haven Green, but none of them have I employed. Not yet at least.

By sight, I figure the Green to be about three-fourths of a mile around (four loops for a 5k) if you were to run the full square, which involves crossing Temple Street, therefore a risk of red light. Sticking to one side or the other would avoid traffic and still offer a nice loop, a scenic alternative to the high school track or indoor treadmill.

Of the two sides of the Green, the east end is preferable. The dirt path under the elm trees feels like a proper park route, whereas the west end, with its assortment of homeless bums and pigeons, is a bit rougher and a bit too close to Yale. And as I recall, no dirt path.

I could have looped it with the Garmin or swung through on my bike and clocked the mileage or else simply plotted it on the Web. But I haven't really run the Green until this morning, when I threw a mini loop into the mix to help round out an eight-miler on the north side of town. A pleasant loop in the heart of downtown — worth adding to the roster as a lazy option for a shorter run.

Perseverance Wears No Raincoat

My top hurdle in training for the NYC Marathon is consistency, so a hard rain is a good test of the will. The thought of running in the rain yesterday — and the desire for an extra bit of sleep — persuaded me to scrap plans for a city run yesterday, though I still did an easy six-miler in New Haven. The rain had stopped by then.

This morning, I wasn't so lucky. It had been a relatively dry summer, until a colossal storm front took hold last night and persisted into today. I'll admit, for a moment I considered bailing on my scheduled tempo run, but that would have set me back in the marathon training plan in a serious way. So I pulled on non-cotton shirt and shorts, as well as my goofy fisherman's hat, and hit the puddle-strewn sidewalk.

The route went along the West River, around the Yale Bowl and through Edgewood Park. And I actually felt better about the run this morning than any training run so far. The cooler temperature surely has something to do with it.

Some Fresh Pavement, Please

Being somewhat new to New Haven politics, I don't know much about Mayor John DeStefano, not sure yet whether he's a worthwhile city leader. But I'll say this: If the guy would just fix the dang sidewalks, he'd get my vote.

I'm not even going to bother with New Haven's roads, which are bad enough — awful for bicycling and driving alike. To be sure, the sidewalks in and around Yale and downtown New Haven are in pretty good shape. No surprise there. But everywhere else they're in various stages of disrepair.

One of the worst neighborhoods is along one of my running routes. Run east on Chapel Street past Yale and Downtown and even past the Wooster Street neighborhood and across the Quinnipiac River, and as the sidewalk progressively deteriorates you can practically hear your sneakers shrieking from the increasingly treacherous terrain. In some stretches, there's more dirt and grass than concrete, as if the Earth had reclaimed the land, stolen it back from careless humans. This impression is shattered, however, by the broken glass that is everywhere along this stretch of Chapel.

It's a shame, because the east end of Chapel is a good running route, even with the Ferry Street drawbridge still closed for repair. Often I just hop the curb and run in the street, hoping the cars don't use me for target practice.

Maybe someday the powers that be in the Elm City will wise up and spend a little money outside what is known as "the Yale bubble." Until then, many apologies to my sneakers.