Unintentional cross training

It's been almost two weeks of training for the NYCM and everything is going great. Despite interference from work* and my first gym-free training program in years, I've done every run so far according to plan (at the right pace, on the right day, at the right distance). Actually, I've found a few benefits of taking the gym out of the equation. I now have to warm up and cool down for .6 miles--the distance from my apartment to Astoria Park. I can get up later because I don't have to walk to and from the gym. Also, every run now has a hill component because I've realized that there is no way to run more than three miles in this neighborhood without coming across a hill.

But there was one aspect of outdoor training that I was not expecting: the pigeons.

Those rats with wings are everywhere. At least once a run I end up running through a handful of pigeons picking food off the ground. The little f!ckers don't start to disperse until I'm right on top of them, but then they start flying forward--so I wind up chasing the virus bags for a couple yards before they realize "oh, I can turn left and avoid this guy."

It's annoying, but I'm considering it a type of unintentional cross training. It's getting me mentally and physically prepared for those similarly annoying opening miles of a race. Those miles when you're stuck behind people that have seeded themselves way too forward and you have have to bob and weave your way around them. And you don't want to step on them because they might give you E. Coli. (Ok, the last one might only apply to the pigeons.)


*Note: my life is in suckage mode for the entire month of July: a major project at work means that I'm working late nights and now I'm working this weekend. So if I'll be a bit MIA until July 28. My apologies now if you're still getting comments from me on posts older than your mother.