Expo Excitement and My Marathon Goals!

You know how they say you’re supposed to take it easy the week of your marathon? I’ve been busier this week than I’ve been in a while–freelance work, meetings and conference calls, marathon-related events, physical therapy, Junior League meetings–and so has everyone else I know that’s running the marathon. While I’d sort of prefer to be busier, oh, any other week, it is good to keep me as distracted as possible.

I had my last physical therapy appointment before the marathon this morning, and I told my physical therapist that my knees are still crunchy when I walk up stairs. It turns out that I’m walking too upright, and I need to stick my butt out more when I walk up stairs. We did these really awkward drills where I walked up the stairs and stuck out my butt for her, and I felt really embarrassed when a cute guy walked past us as I was practicing sticking my butt out in my mismatched socks. I’m pretty sure every time I walk up the stairs now, I’ll think “you can do it, put your back into it.”

I walked back home and saw a few people with their expo bags. I’m not going until tomorrow, so I wanted to run over and say, “HI! HOW WAS IT? WAS THERE LOTS OF GOOD STUFF? DID YOU SEE KARA GOUCHER? ARE YOU EXCITED? WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?” but instead, I just squee-d inside.

Do you see that shorter building between the tall buildings? That’s the Javits Center, where the expo is. For 362 days of the year, it’s just this big annoying building that I have to run or bike around to get to the West Side Highway and which can send hordes of people walking east looking for restaurants on 9th Ave. For three days of the year, it is RUNNER HEAVEN, or officially, the ING New York City Marathon Health and Fitness Expo, and I can’t wait to go tomorrow. [Fellow runners: when are you going??]

I remember when I moved into this apartment last year being very excited for how close it was to the expo, and then immediately realizing what a dork I was for being really excited to be close to something I’d be going to for a few hours on one day of the year.

GOALS:

I’ve been going back and forth with whether I was going to post my goals for this marathon, but I’ve decided to just put it out there. I like how Samantha did this, so I’m going to steal that format. Tomorrow, I’ll put up how you can track me!

D goal: PR from last year’s 4:59. I’m a lot faster than I was last year, and it’s not going to be really hot like it was in Chicago, so I’m pretty sure this one is a given.

C goal: 4:30. This is a 10:18 pace, and most of my long runs have been around 9:5x pace. At the beginning of the training season, this was my A goal, but I’m pretty sure I got this one.

B goal: anywhere between 4:15-4:30. A 4:15 marathon is a 9:43 pace which is slightly faster than I’ve been training at, but with the huge pushes of adrenaline I’ll get with millions of spectators, I think this could be possible.

A+ goal: anything under 4:15. McMillan says I can do 4:04 based on my Grete’s PR and 4:09 based on my Freeport PR. My crazy running coach thinks I can do 3:56; I think he’s smoking crack.

Also, check out this story on DNA Info that quotes me and Shannon talking about marathons and social media.

If you are running NYC, what’s your goal? If you’re training for another race, what’s your goal?